A review by spaceodin
My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

3.5

Oof. So sad I didn’t love this one. All the ingredients seemed catered to my interests - lonely Native teenager finds herself trying to train a final girl for the slasher she suddenly finds herself in - but there’s only so many times I can read the words slasher and final girl and horror movie recycled over before they lose their charm and I start rolling my eyes. Add to that that only a half dozen movie titles are really referenced for the first two-thirds of the book, and the unique narration quickly overstays its welcome. (Very happy to report, my favorite giallo alternate title Twitch of the Death Nerve makes a last-minute appearance.) I’m afraid to say that if the book was cut from 400 pages down to 200 it would’ve been much leaner and more effective, but as it was, if I weren’t stuck in a waiting room for three days with nothing else to read I may not have finished the book at all. Thankfully there’s a fun stinger at the end - true to Nightmare lore - that has me more optimistic to start the second book. Eventually.
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