Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - My Heart Is a Chainsaw

This book was hard to get through. Not because it was profound or gruesome or enlightening, it was just so damn BORING.

Jade was annoying and uninteresting. The constant call backs to slasher films was cute at first but quickly became repetitive and irritating. I signed up for a slasher book and only got the slashing in the final 100 pages of the book.

The twist at the end was good and the gore (when it happened) was amazingly written, it was just having to crawl and claw through the first 350 pages to get there. I found myself skimming pages waaaay too often throughout this one.

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squisheebee_'s review

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challenging dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I absolutely loved the narration of this book. Jade stole my heart & maybe it biased my rating.🤷🏽‍♀️

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falloutofmyactions's review

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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bre_'s review

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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imaginary_space's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

If you read it, read the author's notes at the end! (After reading the book, because spoilers.) He talks about his process writing My Heart is a Chainsaw and it's very informative.

This book hit me harder the second time around. Probably because, as often happens, the first time I was occupied with keeping up with the story. This time I could appreciate all the little nuances, the hints and the small moments of foreshadowing so much more. And for me, it's all those layers that make this book so good.

The first time I read My Heart is a Chainsaw, the revelation about Jade towards the middle of the book completely took me by surprise, I had not seen it coming at all. Which I found shocking, and it made me take a long, hard look at my privilege.
The second time, I suddenly realized why I had not seen it. Because in a lot of ways, I was Jade at that age, so her inner monologue and her behaviour seemed completely normal to me. Which is astounding, because my circumstances growing up were very different from Jade's, and our experiences weren't even the same, just similar enough that we reacted in very similar ways.
So yeah, that fucked me up. Thank you, SGJ. (I mean that unironically. I try to read diverse stories not just because I find it to be a more interesting experience, but also to actively learn about lived realities different to my own, and be a better educated citizen of Earth. Which is why I like my horror to be mixed with a good dose of real-world horror.)

The fact that Stephen Graham Jones wrote a character that I, a person from a very different background halfway across the globe, could identify with so much I didn't see the obvious, proves two things:

He is a truly skilled writer.
Adult men can write believable teenage girls if they just write them as persons and not try to write them as "teenage girls(TM)". Thank you for that, too. Yes, I, too, am sad the bar is that low.

My teenage emotions aside, there's more I like about this book:

The story is multi-dimensional, there's a whole mythology around Proofrock and Indian Lake that feels very much alive - an abandoned camp, a creepy local legend, real past tragedies, things that happened in the past people don't want to talk about ... it feels like a real place and it gives so many layers to the story.
Also, I just love a
creepy little girl
, I'm biased like that.
I like an unreliable narrator, so to me it's refreshing and interesting to see the story through Jade's eyes and her eyes alone.
SGJ is a fan of "show, don't tell", and I appreciate that a lot. In general, his writing style is right up my alley, which is extremely important in horror.

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danimacuk's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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effingunicorns's review against another edition

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dark hopeful mysterious

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

5.0

The first and most important thing about this book, at least for me, is how clearly Jade exists as a bridge between the girls I knew growing up and the girl I was. My issues and the specifics of how I dealt with them were different, but I recognize the struggle to communicate in any meaningful way, the use of a less popular form of pop culture to try and paper over the holes, feeling on some level like at least some of my teachers understood me better than my own friends or family.

As for the rest of the story, it was fun and genuinely delightful to have a POV character genre-savvy enough to be calling out the story beats even as they were happening, but not quite genre-savvy enough (or her awareness too skewed by the trauma she was avoiding) to recognize her real place in it. It was incredibly relatable--but also incredibly frustrating--to watch her spin her wheels late in the story, trying to fit the escalating events into the version of the story she'd already decided it was, racing to figure it all out before the big reveal only to realize it was an option she'd abandoned ages ago. It was a necessary part of her final girl metamorphosis, though, so ultimately I can't bring myself to make any deductions for it.

I am, of course, diving right into the sequel within the next day or two, and the conclusion in March already sounds like it's gonna be phenomenal 👀

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tesshersh's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I’m not sure if I extra enjoyed this book because I’ve read so many BAD books lately, or if it really IS that good, so take this with a grain of salt. But WOW. One of my only gripes is that it touches on some themes that I’m not 100% sure I love being talked abt from a teenage girl’s perspective written by a male author, but I think it was respectfully done.
Spoiler for my other complaint:

I wish that the conclusion/reveal of the killer DIDN’T have a supernatural element. I think the author’s point of regarding real life not being like a horror/slasher movie, about things like gentrification & colonization being a type of horror and violence of their own, was backtracked a bit by letting jade’s theory of a supernatural element be true at the end.

Also: cannot recommend the audio book enough, cara gee was amazing

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