gannetsneverdie 's review for:

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

4.0

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(3.75) i have a few mixed thoughts about some parts of this, some to do with the manner in which the final plot was resolved (and what parts of it maybe..weren't?) and some to do with the writing style itself (because it took a while for me to get back into the rhythm whenever i'd come back to it, with the sort of run-off thoughts that gallop in different directions and can sometimes make you doubt if you're following if you're not paying enough attention). not to say i didn't enjoy it because i really did!! it takes a lot of work to so precisely build the texture of how it feels to be inside someone's head and it was done beautifully here with jade, whom i also loved. the structure, with the interspersed essays on the formal elements of the slasher, was really interesting to see side by side, and honestly i'd have even loved to see some more of them, to establish even more meta throughlines, because those are of course my favourite thing, to see even more of the outside world brought to life through the eyes of these learned patterns and learned expectations from different people. i think when i come back to the sequel a lot of thoughts about this book will also get a bit more sorted out, because there's been a lot of momentum built through this character, and that is always so interesting in horror.