Scan barcode
himinotebook's review against another edition
- 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: Child abuse, Pedophilia, Racism, and Sexual assault
gamerreaper13's review against another edition
- 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: Alcoholism, Animal death, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racism, Suicide, Blood, Suicide attempt, and Murder
Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Deadnaming, Domestic abuse, Incest, Rape, and Cultural appropriation
Minor: Abortion
school_for_scandal's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Addiction and Alcohol
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, and Suicide attempt
grp101'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
3.75
Graphic: Gore and Murder
Minor: Child abuse, Racism, and Sexual assault
uhhlexiconic'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
3.75
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Racism, Violence, Vomit, Suicide attempt, and Murder
Minor: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, and Pregnancy
danimacuk'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
3.75
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Suicide attempt, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Incest, Fire/Fire injury, and Classism
Minor: Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, and Vomit
auteaandtales's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This book was ultimately about trauma, both Jades’ personal trauma from her abusive family and others but also the trauma that came with being Native American. Jade uses horror as a way to cope with this, and it also makes her an unreliable narrator as we cannot tell what is real and what is Jades’ imagination. Unreliable narration, especially in mystery/thrillers, is one of my favourite things to read. It also has other themes of gentrification, which provided some extra commentary on the horrors persistent within the book.
I thought it all flowed together quite well, especially at the start and the end, I couldn’t wait to get back to the book and read more. The middle felt pretty slow and dragged, it felt like the pacing was off, but once it got back on track it was amazing again. However, the way it was written overall felt like a representation of the mental state of Jade as she struggles with what she has been through and copes with grief.
I recommend this a lot. It felt like a love letter to the horror genre and I’d especially recommend this to people who love the horror genre, and those who used the genre as a way to cope with their own real life monsters. I may give this a go via a different format, though. I listened to this via audio, so a lot went over my head and I didn’t feel like I could engage properly. Maybe both audio and written text, even. Either way, I’ll definitely be reading the rest of the series at some point.
Some quotes I liked:
“Horror is not a symptom, it’s a love affair”
“It’s perfectly natural for you to want to defend him. It’s the…it’s like you consider yourself an accomplice just because you were involved, but your involvement wasn’t complicit. Wasn’t voluntary. It never is, it can’t be. You don’t even know you can say no to a parent. Parents are good. Parents are shining and bright, they are the Gods of our world, so whatever they do can never be wrong. It must be your feelings that are wrong. Their mask is that they’re parents. Some of them are more, though. Some of them are monsters”
Graphic: Child abuse, Racism, and Cultural appropriation
emory's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Gore, Rape, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Racism and Vomit
effingunicorns's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
5.0
As for the rest of the story, it was fun and genuinely delightful to have a POV character genre-savvy enough to be calling out the story beats even as they were happening, but not quite genre-savvy enough (or her awareness too skewed by the trauma she was avoiding) to recognize her real place in it. It was incredibly relatable--but also incredibly frustrating--to watch her spin her wheels late in the story, trying to fit the escalating events into the version of the story she'd already decided it was, racing to figure it all out before the big reveal only to realize it was an option she'd abandoned ages ago. It was a necessary part of her final girl metamorphosis, though, so ultimately I can't bring myself to make any deductions for it.
I am, of course, diving right into the sequel within the next day or two, and the conclusion in March already sounds like it's gonna be phenomenal 👀
Graphic: Violence and Murder
Moderate: Alcoholism, Incest, Racism, Sexual assault, and Suicide attempt
tesshersh'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
4.5
Spoiler for my other complaint:
Also: cannot recommend the audio book enough, cara gee was amazing
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Incest, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail
HUGE trigger warnings - not just in the gore/violence you would associate with a thriller but for other content as well, please check content warnings before reading