Reviews tagging 'Grief'

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

28 reviews

moonlitemuseum's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny reflective 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

5.0

Hey man I love Scream too

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Body horror, Vomit, and Fire/Fire injury

incestuous father-child rape is alluded to as part of the protagonist's history

apestforwrens's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

SGJ is an incredible writer and the way he presents Jade really lets the reader ride along with her. I literally stayed up all night to finish this book because I could NOT put it down. It is a horror book, so there is a lot of genre-typical heavy content, but it did not feel gratuitous to me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Suicide attempt, and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Racism, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Colonisation, and Classism

Minor: Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Forced institutionalization, Vomit, Death of parent, and Cultural appropriation

chloseencounter's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-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

4.0

An ode to the slasher, this novel really stole my heart pretty quickly. I enjoyed the MC (and maybe related to her a little too much…) The reason this isn’t a 4⭐️ for me is that the first 100 pages and last 100 pages where so fun but in between it was rather dense. As someone who has loved the slasher genre ever since Scream graced my eyeholes for the first time, I really enjoyed exploring the mind of the MC and all the slasher input she had on the genre, but I think this could be a harder read for most general audiences. The second book in the trilogy comes out this month and I’ll be excited to see how the story continues. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Incest, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

bambooboy's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny informative mysterious sad tense fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Body horror, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Suicide attempt, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Classism

juliatindell's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative mysterious sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Self harm, Violence, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse, Pedophilia, Rape, and Sexual assault

val_so_'s review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, Rape, Sexual assault, Vomit, and Grief

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, and Classism

sarahbw2's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• 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? It's complicated

3.75

It’s definitely a love letter to the horror genre and I recommend it if you like horror movies. I had to DNF the book before because it is pretty slow in the first half but it really picks up in the second half.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Alcohol

Moderate: Body horror, Child abuse, Rape, Blood, and Grief

aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

CHECK CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS
I sorta loved this. I will def be checking out more from this author.
I know some people didnt like Jade info-dumping about slashers (quite a few people said it was annoying or unnecessary), but as someone who is neurodivergent, I thought it was kind of nice to read, and I didn't think it detracted from the story or flow. 
There was a scene towards the end at the big town party that made me a little teary eyed and quite a few scenes throughout the book that really sucked me in where I didn't want to stop reading but I had to. 
Final girls are no joke and Letha plus

Jade and to an extent Shooting Glasses whom I'm actually not sure if he survived or not but I'm counting him anyways

were great finals girls who would not go down without some sort of fight.
I have mixed feelings on who the "slasher" was though, and that's why I don't think I could say this was a perfect book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

yaelaed's review against another edition

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

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

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

cinderrunner's review against another edition

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