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

dark hopeful mysterious
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix

5.0

The first and most important thing about this book, at least for me, is how clearly Jade exists as a bridge between the girls I knew growing up and the girl I was. My issues and the specifics of how I dealt with them were different, but I recognize the struggle to communicate in any meaningful way, the use of a less popular form of pop culture to try and paper over the holes, feeling on some level like at least some of my teachers understood me better than my own friends or family.

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 👀
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