Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

133 reviews

janeanger's review

adventurous dark funny mysterious sad 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt

Moderate: Blood, Incest, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Vomit, Violence, Alcohol, Animal death, Alcoholism, Body horror, Cultural appropriation, and Fire/Fire injury

maryellen's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Gore, Alcoholism, Blood, Death, Murder, Suicide attempt, Violence, Vomit, Body horror, Bullying, and Death of parent

Minor: Sexual assault, Rape, and Child abuse

dr_aimz's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, and Violence

Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Mental illness

Minor: Child abuse and Incest

sleepysadpoet's review

challenging dark emotional 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Death, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Self harm

Moderate: Alcoholism, Mental illness, and Violence

Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, and Racism

Trigger warnings: mentions of rape (not graphic, just mentions), self-harm, death, blood, mental illness, ableism (specifically towards mental illness), suicide attempts. I've always been a big fan of slashers, my favorite being Scream (I even have a ghostface tattoo....). This book pays homage to slashers, and it does so in an amazing way. Jade is an indigenous high schooler who finds comfort in slasher films not long after something really traumatizing happens to her. She writes essays about slashers to her teacher, and the people around her are uncomfortable with her obsession. They don't know why exactly she loves them so much, and they worry it's because of trauma. She's often treated poorly because of her mental health issues, because god forbid the traumatized person find a coping mechanism that people don't approve of. She hopes to see a slasher happen in her own time and doesn't quite realize just how traumatic that is for those who survive. The opening starts with 2 people in a boat who, as we can all guess, don't survive. Jade happens upon a recording of it happening. The police in her town refuse to listen to her concerns despite bodies literally piling up like no tomorrow. I really enjoyed this book and the twists and turns at every corner. I'm super excited for the sequel coming out. The dedication in the acknowledgements to one of my favorite movie directors, Wes Craven, made me want to cry lol.

yaelaed's review

challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Blood, Body horror, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Mental illness, Self harm, Alcoholism, Gore, and Grief

Minor: Stalking, Sexual violence, Vomit, Animal death, and Rape

readundancies's review

dark funny 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? No

5.0

 Uhm, fuck me, cuz this was QUALITY. 

The slasher vibes were real, the trope subversion was immaculate and Jade was a fucking fantastic lead character with the Author Notes just validating that sentiment to me even more when I read them. 

I immediately went and purchased a copy for my own collection and will be waiting in avid anticipation for the sequel. 

This bloody delivered in every way I wanted it to and every way I didn’t know I needed it to. 

Go read this. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Violence, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Self harm, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Emotional abuse, Animal cruelty, Stalking, Death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Rape, Incest, and Sexual assault

mlovesbooks's review against another edition

dark funny 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? Yes

4.75

Stephen Graham Jones, you've done it again.

In the beginning, I disliked Jade as a character but when the book ramps up at about the 70% mark, I'm rooting for her the whole way.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, Suicide attempt, Violence, Vomit, Alcohol, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Rape and Sexual assault

Minor: Cultural appropriation

jayla_hh's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75

Pacing seems horribly slow until 70% of the way in. Actual plot details with the narrators long winded imagining of events made it a creative unreliable narrator but not in a way I very much enjoyed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Self harm, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Pedophilia, Rape, and Incest

trulydevious's review

dark emotional funny 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? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Murder, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Mental illness, Rape, and Alcoholism

Minor: Animal death, Blood, and Body horror

cinderrunner's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

PLEASE CHECK TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS BOOK

This book is just okay. Its very slow moving and long winded. The action doesn't pick up til about 50 pages from the end. The suspense to get there and the buildup felt very weak. I do think its important to note that (according to a google search) the author is native american. The book features a lot of negative stereotypes that would feel very racist coming from an author who was not indigenous. I find this grown man's way of handling writing a story about underage girls to be uncomfortable. When we get introduced to our "final girl" he uses weirdly sexual language when describing her (who again, is only a HS student). There is also a very weird gay baity vibe with Letha and Jade that I don't appreciate. Jade's tragic backstory felt like it came out of left field and felt entirely unnecessary, especially comint from a grown man writing about an underage girl. The SAME effect, that one could try to use to justify why it was valid to have Jade have been through that, could have been achieved by with different less vile means. I think its an authors responsibility when writing about marginalized groups they don't belong to to check themselves on if this story is really theirs to tell and if using these plot points is just exploitative instead of genuinely adding to the story or shedding light on what that group (in this case women and young girls) go through. 100% Jade did not need to be

sexually abused by her father when she was fucking 11. Taking it from general child abuse to the level of rape in a society where females are so disproportionatelyimpacted by rape culture isnt warranted by anything in this plot.

The book does have good bones. It offers interesting themes around stuff like self victimization, accountability, how society will vilify and refuse to help people who function on the outskirts of it, and so on. I like what the author was trying to do and succeeded in doing to a degree. I get what having a heart that is like a chainsaw means and i find it rather poetic. A lot of this book could have been rather poetic and beautifu. But the execution just went flat bordering into being offensive. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Cursing, Sexual content, Grief, Gun violence, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Violence, Blood, Death, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Vomit, Domestic abuse, Gore, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, and Self harm