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spacecataz's review
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Gore, Violence, and Murder
squisheebee_'s review
- 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
Graphic: Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Alcoholism, Addiction, Body horror, Blood, Classism, and Mental illness
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Gore, Animal death, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Suicide, and Self harm
Minor: Rape, Confinement, Sexual assault, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, and Panic attacks/disorders
falloutofmyactions's review
- 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
Graphic: Alcoholism, Deadnaming, Death, Gore, Suicide attempt, Blood, Domestic abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Body horror, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Murder, Violence, Mental illness, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Rape, Incest, and Pedophilia
imaginary_space's review against another edition
- 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
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.
Graphic: Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, Child abuse, and Self harm
Minor: Rape and Sexual assault
catbaker07's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Suicide attempt and Violence
Moderate: Body horror, Blood, Incest, Animal death, Vomit, Death, and Abortion
mkaber's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Violence and Sexual assault
strawbrifieldsforever's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Moderate: Violence, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Death, and Blood
Minor: Sexual violence, Suicide attempt, Addiction, Vomit, and Incest
alaskanlad's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
Graphic: Death, Animal death, Violence, Gore, and Murder
Moderate: Rape, Incest, and Sexual assault
floralfox's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
Overall, I don't think the book worked for a several reasons:
1. There's a duality to this book. On one side, it's extremely slow. Most of the book takes place in the rambling, obsessive mind of 17-year-old Jade Daniels as she relates everything in her life to a slasher film. She's a janitor and sometimes a scene of her picking up trash and thinking about a slasher movie can cover 2-3 entire pages, but none of the information Jade turns over in her head—and none of the actions she's taking—are significant enough to warrant the meandering narrative. But on the other side, the book is trying to cover so many topics at once—threading together several complex topics and histories, where none of them are red herrings and they all get their moment to shine in the end. That means it's a story about repressed personal trauma and history, a story about centuries-old Native trauma, a story about poverty and gentrification, a story about grief and revenge, a ghost story, a Friday the 13th knockoff, a modern slasher, and more all wrapped up into one... except that... most of the time, it doesn't feel like <i>any</i> of them. It feels like a 17-year-old girl rambling in any interior monologue that never stops because she doesn't do anything and doesn't talk to anyone.
2. A lot of important details are embedded into long, rambling dialogue from other characters, such as interviews or tape recordings, and the author is FAITHFUL to the style of long, meandering talking styles where characters repeat themselves, trail off, backtrack, etc. And because they're usually faithfully transcribed, there's nothing to break up this wall of text in the story—no body language, no atmosphere, no nothing. It's easy to get lost in the details.
3. I had to re-read scenes and pages SO MANY TIMES because I'd realize that I wasn't taking anything in because it didn't seem like anything was happening. Then, I'd go back, reread it, and realize that most of the time, I'd been right, and I didn't need to waste my time. Couple that with a lot of times where I couldn't keep track of the passage of time, or thought dialogue between characters jumped around in a way that was confusing, or couldn't orient the characters in space or understand what they were doing with their bodies (or why they were doing it)... overall, there was simply a lot of confusion. It felt like really sloppy editing, both in the point of being able to follow the story, but also in thinking that this 400 page book probably could've been trimmed down to 200 pages.
4. For being in Jade's head SO much, there were important times where I didn't really understand her motivations or feelings. For instance, why WAS Jade compelled to keep the secret of her father's abuse? Obviously Letha, Hardy, and Holmes' approach to trying to get this information out of her was absolutely terrible—but Jade didn't actually engage with their questions internally. And because there were really no significant scenes of Jade with her father after that scene took place, when the truth WAS finally revealed, it didn't land with the weight it should've landed with. It all felt very fractured and distant. In another way, I had no idea what Jade envisioned for herself or her own safety when sh was convinced that a slasher was coming to Proofrock and that Letha was the final girl. Jade had already attempted suicide at this point in the book, but I didn't have a strong sense of whether she felt like that she'd be merely an observer on the periphery of the violence or a victim in her own right—or even how she felt about that possibility! It just felt like she didn't engage with it, even though she was also obsessing about it, but that lack of engagement didn't feel intentional. It felt like an oversight.
5. For someone who was constantly piecing together the plots of 100 different slasher movies and constantly coming up with motivations and theories as to the violence and murders happening in Proofrock, once Jade actually had most of the information after the blood bath in the final pages, she didn't thread ANY of it together. There ended up being not one, not two, not three, but FOUR different murderers in the scope of this book... AND supernatural elements, which felt like a genre-shift, AND one of the red herrings ended up having some validity to it. That is a LOT going on without any sort of clarity at the end. And truth be told, of these four murderers, one felt cheesy, one felt unrealistic, and two felt simply underdeveloped.
There were some good ideas here, but some bad execution. Mostly a matter of style and editing, IMO.
Graphic: Gore, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual assault, Incest, Vomit, and Suicide attempt
uhhlexiconic's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Murder, Suicide attempt, Death, Racism, Animal death, Vomit, and Violence
Minor: Pregnancy, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, and Child abuse