Reviews tagging 'Murder'

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

272 reviews

tifftastic87's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny tense medium-paced

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

5.0

 Content Warnings: suicide attempt, violence, gore, death, murder, off page SA of a minor, alcoholism, animal death

In Proofrock, Idaho, Jade is the resident horror girl. Escaping her life by spending hours watching, thinking and writing about slasher films. The summer of her senior year, as the land across the lake grows McMansions at a supernatural rate, Jade feels the start of a slasher beginning around her. 

I was worried in the beginning this was going to be a “not like other girls” story, and it kind of was but in the most tragic way. Jade doesn’t fit in, because she’s half Indian, because she likes horror, because her home life is rough and she doesn’t know how to make friends. She’s always watching from the outside until she meets Letha. The way she latched on to her was so easy to understand and tugged so hard at my heart. 

I don’t think this has as much to say about race or socio-economic class as some of his other works, but feels more about being an outsider and a survivor. About how important it is to feel like you have control over your own story, to control the narrative. Jade is written with such emotion that I cried for her, even when she couldn’t. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Incest, Racism, and Sexual assault

yodisborg's review against another edition

dark funny tense fast-paced

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

4.5

Graham Jones plays with thr slasher like Alan Moore played with superheroes. There is a love and deep knowledge of slashers and their cheap trashy thrills.  He explores the u deli g pathos that can lie with them and shows that slashers can have something g to say just like ghost stories. Does reach the emotional and resonate heights of Obly Good Indians nor its horror, this is a fun and scary read. The ending is wild.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual violence, and Murder

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

aiden_mr2's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.5

This book is a love letter to all Slasher Movies. The ending of the book kinda gets confusing but it was definitely worth it to see it all the way through.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Self harm, Blood, Suicide attempt, and Murder

Moderate: Child death and Death of parent

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, and Xenophobia

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

chaoshermit's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

I had started the second book in this series first and got like a quarter through before realising it was a sequel. That being said, this series does look like it’s going to be in my favourites list. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

ruronisai's review against another edition

dark sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

Listened to the audio book for this one and got kind of confused at some parts. Think it would be easier to follow reading instead of listening. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

maryhungerford's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Gore, and Murder

Minor: Child abuse, Rape, and Vomit

mikariah's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Chainsaw is stuck firmly between two equally strong narrative impulses: to go balls-to-the-wall literal meta-horror or play with a truly unreliable narrator. Rather than effectively straddle the line, the novel spends its over 400-page runtime jostling violently between the two. What I found so compelling about each option fell flat by the end, though SGJ knows how to smooth over my aches and bruises with a delightfully unrepentant gore-fest in the finale.

I didn't understand every reference. I probably would've enjoyed it more if I did. But even with that context, I still felt my questions were unanswered, the whiplash in tone and impulse just didn't gel with me, and somehow

Jade killing her father

was not as satisfying a move as I'd hoped it would be. You could argue that's the point, but I haven't read the sequel yet. It very well could be. And I'd jump for joy at that kind of internal conflict. The supernatural elements overwhelming the carefully laid real-world-logic foundations also left me with a sour taste. 

Ultimately, I liked it fine, just not as much as I wanted to. The action-packed finale works great in a vacuum. In the broader context, I wonder if I kept my brain too turned on for this.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail