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artemis7'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
4.75
Graphic: Suicide attempt
Moderate: Sexual assault, Child abuse, Murder, and Gore
Minor: Racism and Animal death
charsometimes's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Suicidal thoughts
Moderate: Rape and Child abuse
himinotebook's review
- 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
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.
Graphic: Gore, Self harm, Vomit, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Racism, Sexual assault, Child abuse, and Pedophilia
sammybee's review
- 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
2.5
Graphic: Blood, Gore, Murder, Sexual assault, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Sexual violence
litliz's review against another edition
- 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
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
- 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
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
kingsteph's review
2.5
Graphic: Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Suicide attempt, Violence, and Incest
Moderate: Gun violence, Murder, Rape, and Child abuse
Minor: Fire/Fire injury
gamerreaper13's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
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.
Graphic: Murder, Physical abuse, Alcoholism, Blood, Mental illness, Racism, Suicide, Animal death, Gore, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Child death, Cultural appropriation, Deadnaming, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Incest, and Rape
Minor: Abortion
kmikitin's review
- 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
Graphic: Suicide attempt
Moderate: Incest and Rape
ekw0036's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
I need to stare at the ceiling a bit over this. I won’t pretend this book is without flaws but it’s def the first true horror novel I’ve read in a while. It’s a cerebral, dark, devastating book and I can’t wait to read more from him
Graphic: Violence, Blood, Death, Gore, Murder, and Body horror
Moderate: Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Sexual assault and Sexual harassment