Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

300 reviews

weirdow's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

4.75

I didn't love all of the writing in this, but I think it mostly served purpose and added to the tone. Very, very fun wrap up.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Suicide attempt, and Murder

fujiopples's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

3.5

i love jade (despite her many flaws)! this book makes me realize that i need to watch more slashers...

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Violence, Blood, and Death of parent

Moderate: Animal death, Child abuse, Self harm, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Incest, Rape, and Vomit

andrewb21's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-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

4.0

Really difficult to put down, a whirlwind of smart horror, with homages to the classics of the genre. Perfect for any fans of horror if you can embrace and be okay with the occasional “wait, I don’t think I know what time of day it is or how this character got here” that will go through your mind. A wild ride.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Suicide attempt

fionamclary's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• 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

4.75

Whew, I kind of have to catch my breath after finishing this one. Wow. I have zero familiarity with the slasher genre, and still don't think I'd like to see one, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The third-act "bodydump" was a crazy, over-the-top, high-speed ride, the body horror was horrific, but more than anything I am full of glee for having gotten to be in Jade Daniels's head for 400-ish pages. She's absolutely unhinged, at once instantly easy to fall in love with and be repulsed by. I appreciated her constant slasher infodumps given my lack of background – she's not exactly autistic-coded, but her narration feels like listening to your autistic friend monologue about their special interest, and that's always fun. She's the epitome of morally gray and is utterly fascinating for it. Although at a certain point I was practically screaming, you are so clearly the real final girl! Despite the narration taking place firmly within her POV (except for the first chapter which is really just a prologue), we are not exactly privy to all her thoughts. This makes sense as the book goes on – there are things she isn't thinking about on purpose, things that are buried, and so even her own mind is not the open book it might be otherwise, to us or to herself. The Big Reveal is twofold, a double unveiling happening in the same scene: the unmasking of the killer, and the revelation of what Jade's been keeping buried in her memories all these years. The latter is quiet, heartbreaking, and brutal, its full impact only achieved by the guardedness of Jade's POV.

My Heart is a Chainsaw is not just a sophisticated slasher, however – it's also a quietly yet steadily raging manifesto about Indigenous generational trauma in white small towns, about what parents are supposed to do for their children and how they hurt and fail them instead, about the defiance of survival in a world that doesn't want you to exist. I hope to see this continue in the rest of the series.

There are some unanswered questions that I hope also get addressed in future books. What happened to Letha's mom? Why didn't Jade live with Kimmy after her parents split? Did

Rexall

make it? Was it

Stacey who killed the construction guys? A weapon doesn't seem to be her style given that we only see her killing with her hands

.

My only real criticism of the book is that Jade is so clearly queer, but it doesn't seem that SGJ was aware of this while writing her. Maybe this becomes apparent in later books, but like, no way is this girl with the dyed hair and the combat boots and the obvious barely-supressed crush on Letha straight.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Gore, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Incest, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, and Abandonment

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Kidnapping, Car accident, Cultural appropriation, and Colonisation

The content involving child sexual assault does not occur on-page and is only described semi-graphically once, but CSA is mentioned/alluded to multiple times throughout the book. A survivor of CSA (

Jade

) experiences a flashback during the most graphic description (narration of the circumstances, no description of the assault itself). I would not recommend this book for someone dealing with active PTSD from sexual violence. A suicide attempt occurs on-page early on, but it is not entirely clear if the character's intention in the moment is to die.

wildbookbear's review against another edition

5.0

This book was pretty perfect in a lot of ways. How does someone make a slasher so deep that I was in tears at the end?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Suicide attempt, and Murder

Moderate: Child abuse

snowiceblackfruit77's review against another edition

dark emotional funny informative 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Suicide attempt, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

aggbutterfly's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? No

3.25

This was ok. I liked seeing Jade be delulu about how she is living out a slasher. I feel like I didn't know enough about slashers to understand all of Jade's references and it sorta took me out of the story. It also took me a while to differentiate the names of the town members and founders. I think I was also confused sometimes on how X would lead to Y. I was interested in how the ending would be revealed

I was anticipating the supernatural element throughout the novel

and the ending was also pretty gory with some of the descriptions.
"Growing up, staring out over the water, what she'd always imagined was some monster fish spurting up through the glistening surface, snatching a bird or three, then splashing back down. Anything to break the boredom"

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt

Moderate: Child abuse and Physical abuse

Minor: Rape

shedevls's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Suicide attempt, and Murder

Moderate: Child abuse, Rape, and Sexual assault

Minor: Incest, Vomit, and Cultural appropriation

rrrbkh's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective 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

4.5

I was soooo close to dnf-ing. About half of the book is just building up the story and characters and the last half is all action and horror. There were a couple twists and turns I didn’t expect that made this book absolutely heartbreaking.

Specifically, when jade reveals her father did in fact rape her as a child. When you realize the way she talks about herself and other and how it relates to her love of slashers as a genre, it all comes together. However getting there is the hard part. Many times in the beginning i found myself kinda struggling to get through the most dense explanations of slashers as a genre. However, the way Stephen graham jones sets it all up makes it all hurt even worse. I was crying in the Walmart parking lot because I was listening to the part where her trauma is revealed on the way to the store. It absolutely broke my heart, especially as I didn’t check any trigger warning prior to picking up this book but I’m kinda glad I didn’t because I probably wouldn’t have picked it up.

There could be something said about “horror chicks” and “stereotypes” but honestly I liked the story enough to not be bothered extremely by it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, and Blood

just_a_little_guy's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious tense slow-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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Violence, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, and Suicide attempt