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himinotebook's review
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- 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
Picked this one up on the vague recommendation of a Youtuber I like (shout out to Laura Crone) as part of my concerted effort to get back into reading as an adult, and wasn't quite expecting this book to hit me as hard as it did.
This one is really for the horror movie girlies, I'm a film fan above all else and this one really really spoke to me, it was a passionate love letter to the slasher genre that could only have been written by someone who lives and breathes it. I was constantly delighted and surprised by the observations it made about the form and how it turned them on it's head. I was also enamoured with the writing style, Stephen Graham Jones really throws some sentences down that made me go "damn I wish I could write something that poetic." The world of My Heart Is A Chainsaw feels textured and alive, like it's some great half-dead and decaying eldritch creature that the characters are crawling around on the back of.
The character work was also smooth as silk, this book uses the expanded scope of the medium of literature to do what slasher movies often can't, which is really put us in the main character Jade's head. You find yourself empathising with her and following the logic of even the admittedly bad decisions she ends up making because her mental state and who she is as a person is just so seamlessly communicated in every other facet of the writing.
My only minor criticism was this book had some slightly odd... I guess spatial pacing issues? I'll concede this might have been a me problem but I often found myself losing track of where characters were supposed to be, how they got from one location to another, how long it would take them to do so, whether it was still day or night etc. etc. A minor gripe but really not one that significantly detracted from my overall reading experience.
Also worthy of note that when I finished this, I closed the book, lay there for a minute on the couch and just burst into tears for like 10 minutes, the ending is so frenetic that the emotional gut punch of what was actually happening didn't hit me until I had a moment of peace.
This one is really for the horror movie girlies, I'm a film fan above all else and this one really really spoke to me, it was a passionate love letter to the slasher genre that could only have been written by someone who lives and breathes it. I was constantly delighted and surprised by the observations it made about the form and how it turned them on it's head. I was also enamoured with the writing style, Stephen Graham Jones really throws some sentences down that made me go "damn I wish I could write something that poetic." The world of My Heart Is A Chainsaw feels textured and alive, like it's some great half-dead and decaying eldritch creature that the characters are crawling around on the back of.
The character work was also smooth as silk, this book uses the expanded scope of the medium of literature to do what slasher movies often can't, which is really put us in the main character Jade's head. You find yourself empathising with her and following the logic of even the admittedly bad decisions she ends up making because her mental state and who she is as a person is just so seamlessly communicated in every other facet of the writing.
My only minor criticism was this book had some slightly odd... I guess spatial pacing issues? I'll concede this might have been a me problem but I often found myself losing track of where characters were supposed to be, how they got from one location to another, how long it would take them to do so, whether it was still day or night etc. etc. A minor gripe but really not one that significantly detracted from my overall reading experience.
Also worthy of note that when I finished this, I closed the book, lay there for a minute on the couch and just burst into tears for like 10 minutes, the ending is so frenetic that the emotional gut punch of what was actually happening didn't hit me until I had a moment of peace.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Self harm, Vomit, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Racism, Sexual assault, Child abuse, and Pedophilia
litliz's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
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
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Alcohol, Death, Murder, Rape, Animal death, Bullying, Death of parent, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Alcoholism, Blood, Child abuse, Cultural appropriation, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Violence, and Vomit
flexolo's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- 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
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Addiction, Suicide attempt, Alcoholism, Body horror, Child abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Rape, Vomit, Animal death, Blood, Death, Incest, and Suicidal thoughts
plantybooklover's review
challenging
dark
emotional
- 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
4.25
Ahhhh 5 stars for really great writing. bumped down to 4.25 because the conclusion... was not entirely satisfying to me.
My Heart is a Chainsaw is indeed, as most have mentioned, a celebration of the Slasher/Horror film genre, as told by Jade, a 17 yr old who is singularly focused on them, after experiencing a traumatic life event.
The author toggles between Slasher 101 chapters and the current events of Jade's life in a small town of Proofrock, Idaho (and YES- I hope ProofRock is a nod to T. S Eliot's Prufrock....it sure seems to be) - In the Slasher 101's we are treated to all sorts of Slasher lore, key elements (like mask, weapons, back stories, revenge plots and final girls. In Jade's life chapters- we are reminded how hard it is to be the odd one in a small community, and we are see the actual... slasher is it? evolve and gradually devolve gloriously on the 4th of July with some confessions from Jade and just abject horror, we have dead animals, dead people, macabre misuse of construction tools, (and chainsaws as well)... It was so hard for me to decide if the murders were actually occurring or if Jade was just kind of having a psychotic episode, as both seemed equally possible by the end of the book. There was probably quite a bit of symbolism that just flew over my head, especially as I was using an audio book, and thus was not always 100% focused only on the narrative.
Because I don't like Slashers at all, I didn't really find this book funny- like many did. It seemed more to me a tragedy, but, for the right audience, I think it's both hilarious and tragic. And even though it's a slow build up, the writing is always on point.
Will I read book 2? yeah... I am entirely hooked. I'm rooting for Jade.
My Heart is a Chainsaw is indeed, as most have mentioned, a celebration of the Slasher/Horror film genre, as told by Jade, a 17 yr old who is singularly focused on them, after experiencing a traumatic life event.
The author toggles between Slasher 101 chapters and the current events of Jade's life in a small town of Proofrock, Idaho (and YES- I hope ProofRock is a nod to T. S Eliot's Prufrock....it sure seems to be) - In the Slasher 101's we are treated to all sorts of Slasher lore, key elements (like mask, weapons, back stories, revenge plots and final girls. In Jade's life chapters- we are reminded how hard it is to be the odd one in a small community, and we are see the actual... slasher is it? evolve and gradually devolve gloriously on the 4th of July with some confessions from Jade and just abject horror, we have dead animals, dead people, macabre misuse of construction tools, (and chainsaws as well)... It was so hard for me to decide if the murders were actually occurring or if Jade was just kind of having a psychotic episode, as both seemed equally possible by the end of the book. There was probably quite a bit of symbolism that just flew over my head, especially as I was using an audio book, and thus was not always 100% focused only on the narrative.
Because I don't like Slashers at all, I didn't really find this book funny- like many did. It seemed more to me a tragedy, but, for the right audience, I think it's both hilarious and tragic. And even though it's a slow build up, the writing is always on point.
Will I read book 2? yeah... I am entirely hooked. I'm rooting for Jade.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Vomit, Violence, and Alcohol
Moderate: Abandonment, Blood, Body horror, and Bullying
Minor: Child abuse, Car accident, Sexual assault, Animal death, and Mental illness
bre_'s review
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Self harm, Death, Gore, Suicide attempt, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Animal death and Alcoholism
Minor: Sexual assault, Abortion, and Vomit
karliephobic's review
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore and Murder
Moderate: Vomit and Sexual assault
catbaker07's review
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- 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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide attempt and Violence
Moderate: Body horror, Blood, Incest, Animal death, Vomit, Death, and Abortion
strawbrifieldsforever's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
tense
fast-paced
- 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
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Death, and Blood
Minor: Sexual violence, Suicide attempt, Addiction, Vomit, and Incest
floralfox's review
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- 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
I tried picking this up in October, drawn in by the reviews on the cover and the summary on the back. I was excited after reading the completely eerie, opening scene, full of dread and suspense about two tourists encountering something out on a lake, and never making it back to shore. But nothing else in the entire book matched the quality of those first twenty pages. I put it down for a while and picked it back up while teaching a horror film elective class which is mostly centered around the final girl trope (we watch Psycho, one giallo film, Black Christmas, Carrie, Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Scream) so I was primed for a lot of the references and lore. But I struggled so much with moving forward in the book and can't say I enjoyed myself very much, even though in theory, I should've liked this book a lot more.
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual assault, Incest, Vomit, and Suicide attempt
uhhlexiconic's review
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- 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
Very knowledgeable about slashers but missing some of their spirit, My Heart is a Chainsaw makes sure we know our protagonist before showing us what she's really made of. Slow to start and with a narration style that may take some getting used to, but the third act bloodbath is worth it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Suicide attempt, Death, Racism, Animal death, Vomit, and Violence
Minor: Pregnancy, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, and Child abuse