Real Rating: 4.75* of five, rounded up because my personal ew-icks over slasher films shouldn't count that heavily in judging a book that's utterly upfront about what it is

<B>I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review</b>: There are all sorts of ways to read a Stephen Graham Jones book. Surfaces work...there's always a story hanging around, you won't be wandering lost in thickets of writing-armpit sweat-watered weeds...references work too, you can unpick your memories of the midnight movies or frightfrests your friends threw (or open IMDb if you're really young)...but I think the best way is to make it through as it's happening, to be there as Jade walks across the graduation stage or through walls or up into skies limited only by the basic laws of physics.

The reason I feel that last works best is that, by the time I'd reached the end of this read, and then read Author Stephen's Acknowledgments after the wrenching and impossibly sad final scene, I was so wrung out that I simply accepted that everything I'd just been through had been intended to do what it did to me. As I'm not one to write book reports (ask Mr. Singleton! never turned so much as one in during high school) I'm not going to try to do that at this late date. I referred to this book's immediate older sibling, <I>The Only Good Indians</i>, as "gore with more" and that's an assessment I stand by as applied to all of Author Stephen's books. Part of that "more" is the strangely hypnotic effect of the story arc receding from view...the interstitial "SLASHER 101" essays addressed to the One Good Teacher (of history, naturally) Mr. Holmes are well and truly weirding Your Faithful Reader out. When they switch addressees, it gets even weirder...but in the end, it's painfully intimate and deeply instructive to read them.

In common with all Author Stephen's books, you mere peon of a purchaser have no rights. You're not stupid, you've read some of his other work (at least <I>The Only Good Indians</i>!), you're aware that horror is in store. So surrender your volition. Then the entire experience of being in Jade Daniels's rage-filled head makes all the sense in the world. Because then you're not actually sure if ANY of this is happening in meatspace. Is this an adolescent with anger and abandonment issues responding to the end of what never was childhood? Is this a young woman processing the pain and rage of a life that was wished on her by weaker, worse people than she was? There's a sparkling moment of fizzing delight when Jade meets Letha, a beautiful rich kid whose father has a trophy wife and whose presence in the town of "Proofrock" (think a minute, and hard, for more than the surface snicker; that's all it takes to turn it into a shiver), when Jade anoints her <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_girl">"the Final Girl."</a> That's both when the tale gets grounded in consensus reality and when its ascent into the dark and cold vault of Jade's own head is cemented.

I'm always a fan of gerunding done with panache...Author Stephen does it with panache. At one point, Jade Holden Caulfields across a lawn, and that's me dead cackling. I think there are few greater pleasures than easter-egging your readers' experience...hoping they'll get most of them. I think the fun of reading a book whose author has chosen a niche to write in, one with an astoundingly vast mythos/history/background to explore, is in part the recognition factor of word-play. Yes, it's about slasher-film homage, and no Holden Caulfield isn't slashed to death (though generations of English students have no doubt fantasized that Salinger met that fate after writing it), but he *is* the prototype of the Angsty Teen too smart for easy answers. With everything Jade's carrying around, she's not one whit less burdened than Holden and possibly by some similar troubles given that she's got A Thing growing up strong for Letha.

Adolescent sexuality is always fraught. Parents play their roles in shaping it, either with rule or without them, with clamp-downs or without supervision, there's no right way to ride this roller-coaster. But the issue facing Jade isn't made any easier by her absolute conviction that Letha is The Final Girl, that staple of the slasher film, therefore of necessity being lustrous and almost superhuman in her glorious Otherness. That's how she's supposed to be, right? Jade "doesn't make the rules...just happens to know them all." Her unique and defining obsession with slashers is gong to pay dividends, right? Because she's preparing the Final Girl for her role, unlike most...she won't be surprised by the tragedies.

I think I speak for all readers when I say that the way this blows up can only be described as FUCKING EPIC.

And from that point on, the cigarette boat is away and the pace does not let up.

There are the obligatory twists and turns, the reveals that aren't *quite* reveals, and the accustomed ways that Author Stephen's practiced to get your kishkes kicking and your shvitzer sprinkling. You can't fault the man on delivering the suspenseful goods! If you're in the market for a low-gore delivery of suspense, however, look elsewhere. The way this works is for your expectations to be manipulated so I won't be discussing particulars. Suffice to say I was taken in. More than once. And I'm a pretty well-broken-in reader....

Still, there's no point it wondering why no good deed goes unpunished or how exactly it is that one's expected to walk away from what can not help but feel like a set up straight from a film. The pain and the passionate pull of it will reach some screeching crescendo, won't it, just give it a little more time and it has to!

Nonsense, says the Great God Author.

By the time we've reached the moment when there is no more to give, when the entire story's gone to the most extreme place that it can go...there is something more in the tank for a send-off, and there's no way that you'll believe your eyes when you get there.

Some things just can't be put right. And others can't be left wrong. The issue is...who decides.

I really wanted to love this book. I really did. But I struggled with it big time. Perhaps it was the writing style I didn’t connect with because I am always in the mood for a thriller, so I can’t blame it on the subject matter. I had difficulty following the main character’s stream of consciousness and I felt the slow burn was excessively slow.
Despite my lack of love for this book, I will be reading The Only Good Indians. Or at least giving it a chance:)

This one was a ride the whole way through! My Heart is a Chainsaw is first and foremost a true homage to the slasher genre. We follow our main character Jade who is obsessed with slasher films and who seems to really believe she's living in one. When a murdered couple floats to the shore of the town's lake though, it seems that Jade's slasher films are becoming reality.

I really really enjoyed this book. I will say it was definitely a slow burn horror. There wasn't non-stop action or suspense - it was really a build. This may mean it's not a book for all however I do think it was extremely well done if you have the patience for it. Stephen Graham Jones did an incredible job building out the setting of this book. letting us learn more about the characters, and also gets an A+ for creating such a complex and intense protagonist. Jade is flawed of course but wow does your heart begin to ache for her. This is more than just a horror novel, it's a horror story about PEOPLE and Graham Jones makes the story so human.

This was a really unique experience and I will be looking for more from the author.

My Heart is a Chainsaw comes from the be careful what you wish for file.

First and foremost, this story is an homage to the slasher film genre. And Jade, our protagonist, is a walking, talking slasher encyclopedia. Jones puts on full display his knowledge of the genre through Jade, spelling out the pattern à-la Scream, highlighting the glorious staples of the genre and informing his audience of the lesser-known hidden gems. However, he puts a fantastic twist on one of the most cardinal elements of the slasher: the final girl.

Secondly, Jones really makes us take a long hard look at ourselves, the things we do, say, and think about people who look different from us. The things that have happened over the generations and the impact those events still have today. My Heart is a Chainsaw is a challenge to do better.

My only complaint was Jade’s overcharged imagination. Sometimes it felt a little difficult to tell reality from Jade’s superimposed unreality; perhaps this was what Jones was going for, it just left me feeling a bit distracted from time to time.

Jones did all of this within a supercharged horror story. Filled with captivating characters and one of the best action-filled climaxes that I’ve read in years, every element helped to build the story right to the bloody end!

*4.5 Stars

Four stars for sheer campy weirdness. I've never watched a slasher film in my life, but you don't need to be familiar with all of Jade's references in order to pick up what she's putting down. Jade is an excellent protagonist, spiky and weird and damaged and such an authentic teenager. The book's prose style is borderline manic, and it wasn't always my favorite, but at least it's new and different. Jade is convinced there's a slasher in her town, keeps trying to fit everything into the slasher tropes she's obsessed with, and there's a built-in tension from wondering if she's right, and if so who the slasher is; and if she's wrong, what that will mean for her.

I did find the pacing a little erratic – the first 2/3 of the book or so was surprisingly slow, and then the last 1/3 ratcheted up real fast – and I wanted more closure at the end. But I also recognize that Jones is operating within a slasher framework with which I'm not familiar, so maybe both of these are par for the course. I was also really interested in Jade's past and in the underbelly of her psyche, for which very effective hints were dropped throughout, but I wanted more of that overall.

My Heart is a Chainsaw wasn't exactly my cup of tea. I am not a fan of long-winded tangents, and a lot of this book is exactly that. Because the book is coming in at over 400 pages, you can expect many of those pages to be such tangents. It makes for slow reading.

I would have loved this book if we took out that slow parts and focused on the horror aspect. I liked Jade's vast knowledge of all things horror movies. Jade is a very special character who has been through too much in her young life. When the pacing finally started picking up, the book was hard to put down. Overall, this is an enjoyable read, and while not totally the right fit for me, it will appeal to a lot of readers. Thank you, Gallery Books, for sending this along.

I don't even know where to begin unpacking Stephen Graham Jones’s latest horror, "My Heart is a Chainsaw." What a ride. A true horror and yet it teaches us that sometimes the toughest scenes to watch aren’t the ones with all the blood and gore, but the tender ones that unmask the lies we’ve told ourselves to protect our hearts.

Jade is a loner. Her family life is non-existent, she has no friends and the entire town considers her an outcast. To cope, she escapes into the safety (ironically) of horror films. She knows everything about slasher movies and sometimes the line for her between reality and film is a bit blurry. But when the horrors from her favorite movies start happening in her hometown of Proofrock—specifically on the waters of Indian Lake and the new development across the lake, she must tap into her knowledge of these films to solve the mystery and survive the massacre she’s sure is going to happen in her town.

This one isn’t going to be for everyone. I still struggled a bit with the writing style even though I have previously read his work, but Chainsaw was a bit easier as we only have Jade’s perspective. It also is a slow build and you have to trust it’s worth it in the end (it is). As unreliable and well, jaded, Jade is, I was totally invested in her story and rooting for her. While it’s certainly her love letter to slasher films and filled with all the gore, gruesome, masked predictability of them, this book is unpredictable at the same time. It’s a journey of self-discovery and we learn very quickly that this damaged girl is the way she is from a lifetime of pain, fear and longing. Despite those cracks in her armor, she is still willing to fight whatever comes her way for her own moment of triumph—her own final girl revenge.

In a nutshell: psycho teen girl obsessed with slasher movies predicts slasher event in her rural mountain town…and she’s right. Overly complicated story with so many pop culture references to 1970’s and 1980’s slasher movies that it becomes confusing and irritating. This book could have used more good editing and would have been much better.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, especially after I made it through the first half. The beginning has a lot of exposition—I learned a lot about Jade, her favorite teacher Mr. Holmes, Sheriff Hardy, and the town of Proofrock. It might feel slow to some people, but the action really ramps up about 60% of the way through.
There is a fair amount of gore, but nothing that made me want to stop reading.
I don’t have the same love for slashers that Jade, the main character, or the author have, but I was able to appreciate the many references to slashers, and Jade’s reliance on slasher tropes throughout the story. I actually really liked Jade’s obsession with slashers because it made me question her reliability and who really was behind the killings.
Sometimes the writing required me to focus more than I usually do while reading, but it didn’t take away from enjoyment of the story. I thought this was a creative and engaging story and would definitely read it again for spooky season.

My Heart is a Chainsaw is a primarily a single POV story that follows Jade, a Native American teenager who’s passionate about slashers. Jade longs for a slasher to go on a killing spree in her rural town. When a new girl comes to town that is the epitome of a Final Girl, Jade knows that a slasher cycle will begin soon.

The story has themes of conquering and living with childhood trauma, generational trauma, and genocide.

I struggled to get through the first half of the story, but did manage to get invested in the story eventually.

Trigger warnings
Jade is struggling with thoughts of suicide, and alcoholic father, an absent mother, and sexual abuse. Some of the most horrific parts of the story surround Jade’s personal trauma. There are not graphic details of Jade’s sexual abuse.

There are also lots a gore, human and animal.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an E-arc of My Heart is a Chainsaw in exchange for an honest review.

17 year old Jade Daniels, who is an expert on the history of horror films, uses this knowledge to cope with the horror of her own life. This is small town America where we learn about the displacement of the Indigenous , through the eyes of high school senior, Jade, who is half Indian with an abusive father and a missing mother. The town of Proofrock, Idaho located along Indian Lake doesn’t want anything to do with this young lady.

Jade is an angry teen that lives in her own world, a world where she feels safe only when watching, thinking about, talking about and trying to live in the world of horror. She especially loves the “Slasher” type movies.

In the book, Jade, is basically narrating the history of Proofrock as if it is one of those slasher movies. Then murders begin happening in Indian Lake, Jade pulls us into her crazy world of masked slasher murderers and predicts how the plot will unfold.

As Jade pulls or sucks us into her dark ideas, we will see another side of a traumatized girl under the mask. What exactly does Jade wish for? Read this fabulous books to learn all about her.

This book is written from Jades point of view only. It begins with a murder and then Jade begins predicting where the plot for her town will go. The author also shares Jades written sorties for her history class which helps build the story line toward a Knockout ending to the novel.

Horror at is finest. Thank you for this Advanced Reader copy.

My Heart is a Chainsaw is a horror novel with elements of “slasher film” mythology and the paranormal. Recent high school grad Jennifer (Jade) Daniels is the only person in her small Idaho town that realizes some recent deaths are just the beginning of a “slasher film” type killing spree and draws on her experience watching the movies to predict what will happen next.

This was my first Stephen Graham Jones book and won’t be my last. I enjoyed Jade’s perspective as a town outcast with an unusual passion (slasher films from decades before she was born) but also a tragic backstory that she can’t admit to anyone or even herself. Like the movies constantly referenced throughout the book (mostly via Jade’s papers for history class) Stephen Graham Jones uses his humor and disturbing imagery to tell a story of revenge but also of neglectful parenting and the exploitation of land by the wealthy.

I highly recommend this often bloody and scary novel for people who enjoy horror novels and a smart and snarky young heroine.

4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Jade is obsessed with horror films, specifically slasher movies. Her knowledge about the genre is so vast that she could write a book; she already writes papers on the topic for her history teacher. Finding life in her small town boring and mundane, Jade is practically desperate for something to happen to distract her from her life with her abusive father, her absent mother, and the new mansions being constructed near Indian Lake, home of the Lake Witch. As the blood begins to flow and the bodies start to pile up, Jade is convinced she has found the Final Girl who will win out in the end over whoever, or whatever, is leaving death in its wake, but she soon realizes that life does not always imitate art.

I’m honestly not sure what to think about My Heart is a Chainsaw. It has a Shakespearian tragedy vibe to it, only bloodier. I found it a little boring for the first three quarters, but the action really picked up during the last bit. It touches on some serious, heavy topics without going unnecessarily far into them. I liked the style of the novel; the narrative is occasionally paused to include Jade’s essays on her philosophy of slashers. At times some of the essays seemed like filler, but many of them add to the story and the understanding of Jade as a character. The characters are interesting and well developed, although for a few of them it seemed like too much detail was included when compared to their impact on the events of the story. Overall it was an enjoyable, eventful novel, it just took awhile to get there.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery/Saga Press fro gifting me an electronic copy of My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones, given in exchange for an honest review; all opinions are my own.

My introduction to Stephen Graham Jones was last year's The Only Good Indians, a book I didn't love, but I was still eager to read My Heart Is a Chainsaw. There was enough in The Only Good Indians to intrigue me, and when I read the synopsis for this one, I was sold: A damaged teenage girl named Jade, who is obsessed with slashers, begins to believe that the plot of a slasher movie is playing out in her gentrifying, lake mountain town. To say that I'm glad I gave Jones another chance is an understatement, because Chainsaw is an incredible read, and one of my top reads of the year so far.

Jones' encyclopedic knowledge of slasher films aside (shared with readers via Jade's light-hearted and endearing "Slasher 101" papers, extra credit for history class), the heroine at the center of Chainsaw is, quite literally, the novel's beating heart. Jones' pacing is slow, often excruciatingly so, but he uses that time introduce us to Jade: a lonely young woman who has been betrayed in devastating ways by the people who are supposed to care about her the most, a heartwrenchingly vulnerable girl who uses slasher movies as both a coping mechanism and a cry for help. She became so very real to me over the course of the novel, and she broke my heart in the way that all the best characters do.

But if the first 60% is mostly a character study, the last 40% of Chainsaw is non-stop horror, scene after scene of desperate action, visceral gore, and disturbing imagery, all conveyed brilliantly by Jones. The build-up is long, but if you came here for horror, you won't be left wanting: the pay-off is huge.

And running underneath all of this is an important conversation about indigenous people's lack of choice and control, especially in capitalist-driven gentrifying communities. The entire book, I think, can be read as a metaphor for this deeper discussion. It's astoundingly well-done and profound.

And those last couple of paragraphs? They were brilliant, and absolutely gutted me.

Honestly, I don't think this book is for everyone but I also want to recommend it to everyone because it's truly special. It takes some patience, but it's one of the most worthwhile reading experiences I've had in quite some time. I'll narrow it down a bit and recommend it for true fans of the horror genre, both book and film, and readers looking for complex characterizations -- and know that having a strong stomach is a must.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery/Saga Press for my digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you, Stephen Graham Jones, NetGalley, and Gallery Books for the opportunity to read this book!

I really enjoyed Stephen Graham Jones’s previous book, The Only Good Indians, so I thought I knew what I was getting into with My Heart is a Chainsaw. Nooooooope. I had to read a romance novel immediately after reading this or else I would never be able to fall asleep. I know Stephen Graham Jones has what I will call extremely graphic details but somehow I am never prepared for it. Jade Daniels is back at school after being hospitalized. She needs to make up some history homework to get her final grades and what better way than to incorporate her love of slasher lore. A Dutch couple goes missing at the lake which is being gentrified. Jade Daniels recognizes the signs of what is happening…slasher movies taught her everything she knows– if only those around her would listen.

TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide, Gore, Murder, Abuse

Dear friends, those who adore Friday the 13th, Halloween, Saw…this is for you! It has the scares and the gore. I am not the biggest fan of slasher movies but I do love horror and really appreciate how the author breaks down and analyzes the themes that are incorporated with slasher movies. No stone is left unturned. There were moments when I covered my eyes while reading because I was terrified…of course, I kept reading but I am not exaggerating, I was scared. But that is what I wanted! There have been some books that claim to give you goosebumps but are lacking, not this book!

There is so much to unpack with Jade Daniels. She is a teen with a troubled home life, plus she is obsessed with slasher movies (don’t you dare call it “horror”.) It is obvious she is traumatized and slasher films help her cope. But she is a fantastic main character! She cares and loves so deeply for those around her. If I were to be in a place where a murderer was unleashed or the end of the world-she is the type of person I would stick with.

Then there is the colonialism and gentrification themes within the community and that its own horror. Overall, another phenomenal book and recommend it to all my fellow Halloween fans! I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars!

Thank you to Netgalley and Gallery Books for the ARC.

🌟🌟🌟💫 3.5/5 stars

My Heart is a Chainsaw is a very complicated read. It has an excellent premise and an excellent prologue, but has a very slow pace and challenging writing style. My Heart is a Chainsaw is a love letter to all things slasher horror. It follows Jade, a complex, angry outcast dealing with a difficult home life. Jade finds comfort in horror movies and begins to realize that horror is now unfolding around her.

I am starting to realize that my love of horror movies, particularly slasher movies, is causing me to go into slasher horror books (e.g. Final Girls, The Final Girl Support Group, etc.) with much too high of expectations. As I said, this has a great premise, but is loaded with backstory and a slow build-up that causes it to not really get started until around 70%. Slow burns are hit or miss for me and all of the fun horror movie references couldn’t completely save this one.

However, I did switch to the audiobook version and that helped me with the writing style. I highly recommend giving it a shot on audio. If you are a horror movie fan that enjoys a slow build-up, you will love My Heart is a Chainsaw.

ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

So at the beginning you have Lotte and Sven. They are in America from the Netherlands on what I assume is some kind of either foreign exchange program or immersion thing, and for whatever strange reason ended up in Proofrock, Idaho. Lotte keeps telling Sven to speak in English and he's doing his best to sound like an American. They're about to go skinny dipping in Indian Lake. Lotte jumps on a pier, but instead of the lake proper ends up in a canoe. She and Sven row out away from the pier and doesn't this sound like the perfect moment for this young couple? Lotte has her phone recording and it records their death. I'll let you read it to find out just how they die.

Then we have Jade, the town pariah, the Indian with ever-changing hair color who is obsessed to the extreme with slasher films. She writes whole essays on them for her history class which her long-suffering teacher Mr. Holmes accepts sometimes, sometimes he makes her write a legitimate history paper. Her focus seems mostly on the transformation of the final girl, but also the necessary elements of a slasher film. She works part time as janitor, mostly trying her best to avoid the sleazeball who installs cameras everywhere. Jade's home life is a mess. Her mother lives in the same town but she hardly ever sees her except when she goes to the dollar store where she works and steals hair dye. Her father is sleaze ball drunk with drunk sleaze ball friends.

Jade gets into an argument with her father, I think over him allowing one of his drunk sleaze ball friends to oggle her or say something to her and she takes off. She makes an almost-friend she calls Shooting Glasses, talks him and herself into a frenzy, then runs off, gets in the town canoe, and slices her wrist open. Shooting Glasses calls Sheriff Hardy (take note, the law enforcement presence is key to a good slasher film), who carries her to shore screaming to the lake, to the night, to everyone who came out to witness the tragedy that the lake WAS NOT GOING TO TAKE HER.

Hardy, we learn, had lost a daughter in Indian Lake.

She goes to a treatment facility, misses school for eight weeks. When she is released, Hardy drives her back and gives her her belongings, including a phone. Except... Jade has her phone already. Does Hardy really think that this pink bedazzled thing is HERS? Whatever. It is time for school. When she goes back....

Enter Letha Mondragon.

Letha has just moved to town with her father and could-be-her-sister stepmother ahead of the completion of a new development on a forested land that the locals refer to as Camp Blood and hold in a terror-filled awe and reverence. Because there was once an incident that could be slasher lore - Stacey Graves. The heartbreaking tale of how she became the wreckage that become the town's horrific legend only minorly balances the story out. But back to Letha.

When Jade first meets Letha, it's in the high school bathroom and I got a partially jealous, almost infatuated, minorly obsessed vibe from Jade's speechless reaction. Jade falls into her head and immediately begins constructing Letha into the most perfect final girl in Proofrock's very own real-life slasher.

Jade now has a purpose in life. Her mission is to turn Letha to TRAIN Letha into being the final girl she knows she can be.

Sure, Jade has moments where she thinks maybe she is just wishful-thinking herself into a frenzy and slashery is not really about to unleash itself in Proofrock. Could it all be in her hair? But no!

On that pink bedazzled phone is a video. A video of Sven and Lotte. A video that doesn't end well for them. Then Letha finds Sven's body. Lotte's body is not found, but the body count is growing. Let the bodies hit the FLO! And even better, because this is another necessary element of any great slasher - Letha, Jade's most perfect final girl, is the one finding them all. Jade couldn't be more excited or validated.

But no one believes her. Of course no one believes her. Town pariah, yeah?

But Jade isn't the only one analyzing and inspecting events. See, in her valiant effort to turn Letha into the final girl, she has created a sort of care package that includes not only a letter including everything she things Letha needs to know RIGHT NOW (crash course, not a full course), but also copies of essays that she has turned in to Mr. Holmes, and a slasher film for Letha to watch to prep. But Letha isn't interested in any of that. What Letha is interested in is between the lines of Jade's letter, which she explains to Hardy, who brings in Mr. Holmes, and soon there is an effort to confront Jade with what they believe has caused her to latch onto horror films in a very unhealthy way. They believe that there is a driving force behind the prank-playing horror hound that everyone sees, and the pain beneath the surface is now not only threatening Jade, but the entire town.

With things not quite as they seem, gray areas that make you (and me and Jade) question everything, and topics that sear the heart to look at but do so much damage if we look away, My Heart is a Chainsaw is one hell of a genre-bender with just enough blood and gore to get by as horror while subtly gutting you, eviscerating you, reaching it's long-fingered hand down your throat and pulling your broken but still beating heart back out of your maw.

I am going to stop here to avoid any spoilers, but I did rather enjoy this book.

There is a lot to unpack here. On the surface you have a teenage slasher complete with lots of gore and final girl heroes yet Stephen Graham Jones manages to bring this to an entirely different level. Native lore, child abuse, suicide and the taking over of indigenous land are all on display here A slow burn of a book that is ALOT but definitely worth reading. Be prepared to stay for a while., this is not a story you breeze through. Thanks to netgalley and Gallery Press , this book publishes August 31!!

“You sure you should be working around kids?” Jade asks. “Or even around, you know, living people?”
“Tried the morgue in Boise,” he says. “There was . . . an incident. Ask your dad about it sometime, he was there.”

Jade waits for him to guffaw or chuckle, because this has to be a joke, doesn’t it?
————————————–
“Can’t I just like horror because it’s great? Does there have to be some big explanation?”

Before you sit down to read Stephen Graham Jones’s most recent novel (well, this week, anyway. The man produces King-ian, Asimov-ian volumes of work), My Heart is a Chainsaw, you might want to prepare a large bowl of popcorn, not that microwave crap, actual popcorn, kernels from a jar or bag into a pot with pre-heated oil, and a lid ready to pop over the top, to keep your kitchen floor from getting covered with flying bits. If you’re like me, there will be a second burner dedicated to melting a slab of butter. Once the popping stops, pour some or all of this heavenly treat into a large bowl. (Well it does not have to be too large as you are probably reading alone.) then drip the melted butter across the top, mix it up a bit. Open up a shaker of popcorn salt and apply. This calls for an oversize cold-drink for help in washing it down. It really should be a Friday or Saturday night. And why go to all this trouble for a book? Because Stephen Graham Jones is taking you to the movies.

You may or may not have been around in the 1970s, 80s, 90s, or some of the other decades noted here, but videos of the films made back then have been available for a long time and formed a major part of Jones’s cinematic education as a young person. His life was considerably enriched from seeing a lot of horror movies, slasher films in particular. He loves them.

In this book, SGJ offers up an introductory class on the genre, or sub-genre. (Can’t say how closely it might mimic the course he taught on the subject in his day gig as a college professor. But I would love to see the syllabus for that.) in the form of chapters titled Slasher 101. These remind us, for example, that the slasher is always driven by revenge. His rage is not mindless. That there is usually a significant gap between the commission of the crime that is being avenged and the execution of that mission. That there is always a “final girl,” the purest of heart, who ultimately (usually) either escapes or bests the baddie, for the moment, anyway. In his 2015 novel, Aquarium, David Vann does something similar, calling attention to the structural girders being put in place as he places them, in his case for the literary novel form. Reads like these are always extra fun.

As Jones walks us through the stages in a slasher film, he echoes the tropes in the novel through his lead, Jade Daniels, a damaged seventeen-year-old Native girl who has seen and caused a huge amount of trouble. She seems to be in conflict with the world more or less constantly, but she is not a bad kid. She does janitorial work for the county. She is smart, resourceful, and a huge fan of horror, particularly slasher films, toting with her Jones’s encyclopedic knowledge of the genre. She is maybe a bit too obsessed with this stuff. I mean, if your only tool is a hammer, every challenge begins to look like a nail. But what if you have, by pure chance, made yourself the perfect tool for this very prominent, thin piece of metal sticking straight up out of your town. A bloated tourist body floats to the top of the lake and blood starts flowing like the elevator at the Overlook. Jade knows, or at least thinks she knows, what’s coming.

She writes reports (the twelve Slasher 101 chapters) for a favorite teacher, one Mister Holmes (Grady, (which reminded me of Delbert Grady of The Shining fame) not Sherlock), each one explaining one or more of the tropes of horror films. Each trope is summoned into being in the real world, of course, making this very meta.

"Metafiction is a form of fiction which emphasises its own constructedness in a way that continually reminds the audience to be aware they are reading or viewing a fictional work. – definition from Wiki"

Jade lives in Proofrock, Idaho, proud possessor of several of the elements native to slasher flicks. Teenagers, of course. A lake (Indian Lake) with its own historical spook, Stacey Graves, bent on avenging wrongs done to her family,

"Stacey Stacey Stacey Graves
Born to put you in your grave
You see her in the dark of night
And once you do you’re lost from sight
Look for water, look for blood
Look for footprints in the mud
You never see her walk on grass
Don’t slow down, she’ll get your–"

a camp on the lake with its own sanguinary history, and LOL name, Camp Blood, as least that’s what everyone in town calls it. Fifty years ago it earned that designation with extreme prejudice.

There is not a lot going on in Proofrock, (which MUST BE a reference to T.S. Eliot’s first published poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, which, according to Wiki, is a dramatic interior monologue of an urban man, stricken with feelings of isolation and an incapability for decisive action that is said “to epitomize frustration and impotence of the modern individual” and “represent thwarted desires and modern disillusionment.”) Jade provides that inner take here. She certainly experiences isolation, and endures frustration and impotence, not to mention personal abuse. Jade is both wishing for the slasher to be real and for him not to be real. Great, if it is. You were right all along. Take a bow. On the other hand, you are likely to be killed. Hmmm, decisions, decisions. She is actually eager for the inevitable bloodbath to begin, finding this strangely exciting. Well, maybe not so strange for a kid with suicidal impulses. She’s got her reasons.

Jade is a Cassandra (another slasher film trope) trying to tell everyone that dire days lie ahead, but no one believes her. The new wrinkle in Proofrock, Idaho is the arrival of The Founders, a group of billionaire families who managed to have some of the national forest on the other side of the lake made un-national, and have begun building an enclave, Terra Nova. Yachts and smuggler boats have begun to appear on the lake, homes are being erected. And the daughter of the alpha male of that crowd befriends Jade. Letha Mondragon (are we meant to think or Arthur Pendragon here?) fits right in with Jade’s narrative. She is the supreme final girl. In case you are unfamiliar with the term, it was coined by Carol J. Clover in 1992.

"The original meaning of “final girl”, as described by Clover in 1992, is quite narrow. Clover studied slasher films from the 1970s and 1980s (which is considered the golden age of the genre) and defined the final girl as a female who is the sole survivor of the group of people (usually youths) who are chased by a villain, and who gets a final confrontation with the villain (whether she kills him herself or she is saved at the last minute by someone else, such as a police officer), and who has such a “privilege” because of her implied moral superiority (for example, she is the only one who refuses sex, drugs, or other such behaviors, unlike her friends). – from Wiki"

Think Alice Hardy in Friday the 13th, Laurie Strode in Halloween, Nancy Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street and on and on and on.

The good-girl element of the final girl trope eased over time, offering more kick-ass than kiss-ass, with final girls like Ripley in the Alien series, or Jamie Lee Curtis sticking it to Jason in Halloween. Jade spots Letha as the final girl of the upcoming carnival of blood. She is a really good person, and an actual model, with unbelievable skin. She is athletic, morally strong, and seems to have been sent over from central casting. She is also unbelievably hot, and Jade has a bit of a crush on her. Nevertheless, Jade determines to do everything in her power to see to it that Letha has the weapons and knowledge she needs to go to battle in the inevitable final bloodbath, aka The Body Dump.

But we know, or at least suspect, since the slasher film story is usually told from the perspective of the final girl, that maybe Letha is not the one.

"I wanted to push back against the notion of the final girl being a supermodel, valedictorian, or babysitter. Since the 1970s, they’ve all been Jennifer Love Hewitt types. For many girls and women, that’s an impossible ideal. The book’s main character, Jade, has dealt with feelings of inadequacy her whole life. Also, most of the victims are rich and entitled white guys, not 17-year-old cheerleaders. – from the 5280 interview"

The mystery is who (or what) is perpetrating mayhem, and why. That satisfies the need, or, certainly, a desire, for a mystery. Slasher movie bloodlettings are acts of revenge. Ok. So, what is it that is being revenged, why, and by whom? The how is where movie directors and novelist get to come up with creative ways to pare back, sometimes waaaaay back, the character list.

Jones always keeps an eye on social content, payload that arrives with the story. It, or at least some of it, usually has to do with Native people and their relationship with the white world in which they are embedded. Very real-world stuff. No Magic Indians need apply. The presenting issue here is gentrification, an invasion by the Uber-rich into a very working class area, upsetting everything, taking public land for private use, trying to buy their way into acceptance, while toting along a significant shortage of moral concern. There is also the existence of racist elements in the town and the Native people getting the lesser end of things economically.

When people in Proofrock can direct their binoculars across the water to see how the rich and famous live, that’s only going to make them suddenly aware of how they’re not living, with their swayed-in fences, their roofs that should have been re-shingled two winters ago, their packed-dirt driveways, their last decade’s hemlines and shoulder pads, because fashion takes a while to make the climb to eight thousand feet.
Secondary characters run a gamut. Some are cannon fodder, of course, but there is a nice collection of understandable town characters. Jade’s teacher, Holmes, is wonderfully understanding, and has plenty of quirk (and anger) to support it. The town sheriff is a remarkably understanding sort, with a soft spot for Jade. He may not understand, or accept what she tells him (she is a Cassandra, after all, and there is the very real possibility that he might be hiding something) but he seems to be quite well-intentioned. Her father is a horror, and his bff may be even worse. There is sympathy for Jade in surprising places. They know something we do not. The Founders are mostly cardboard cutouts, which is fine. And then there is Letha (last name not Weapon). While presented as impossibly perfect, she is the one member of that clan given a closer look. Is she or isn’t she what Jade sees her to be, a paragon of final girlhood?

Throughout the novel, there is a pervasive sense of humor. The quote at the top of the review is a prime example of that. There is more. Not sayin’ you’re gonna shoot your beverage of choice out your nose, but there is plenty here that will make you smile.

GRIPES
Not much. The deus was messing with his ex, machina, a bit too much for my taste. I could not fathom why Jade was not more curious when a stranger’s cell phone falls into her hands. And I was not entirely thrilled with the last bit of the ending. But these are minor concerns. My Heart is a Chainsaw is both a jaw-dropping, brilliant homage to the slasher genre, and a bonafide member of the club.

So, when you read this, takes notes, consider all that is going on. There will be a test. Pass/Fail. Pass, and you gain three college credits toward your degree. Fail? Well, trust me, you really, really do not want to fail.

"She’s everything Jade always wished she could have been, had she not grown up where she did, how she did, with who she did.
It’s going to be epic, the final battle, the final girl against slasher high noon.
Unless Jade’s just making it all up, she reminds herself."

Review posted – August 27, 2021

Publication date – August 31, 2021

I received an eARE of My Heart is a Chainsaw from Saga Press of Simon & Schuster in return for a fair review and some extra-strength fishing-hooks. Thanks to Maudee of S&S, and NetGalley for facilitating.

For the full review, with images and links, italics and bolds, please take a look at it on my site
https://cootsreviews.com/2021/08/28/the-slasher-goes-meta/

There will be blood and “community eyeliner.” You have been warned!

I really struggled with rating this book because it caught me in a reading slump, but it also made an impression on me, which can’t be taken lightly. I wanted to read this because [book: The Only Good Indians] was written in one of the <i>best</i> narrative voices I’ve read in the past few years. This is to say, the <i>writing</i> carries a distinct personality. Did <i>My Heart is a Chainsaw</i> deliver? Uh, yeah!

The narrative voice was a bit more subtle here. Other than the opening scene, the story centers on one character (Jade), who’s a seventeen year old, self proclaimed misfit. She has a bold personality, but this molded by her obsession with slasher films (especially the “final girls”), and a traumatizing event that occurred in her past. Her obsessiveness is on par with a kid trying to explain away the intricacies of Minecraft for a solid 90 minutes—overwhelming, but I follow! I feel for her, but she also bored me from time-to-time. Her <i>voice</i> comes through in the form of essays scattered throughout the book, (which I’ll return to). Most of the text reads as though we’re Jade’s conscience, but sometimes her logic and motivation is hard to follow.

There’s little to criticize from the text, outside of character backstory. Jade feels real enough, though she can be a frustrating read because: She. Is. Obsessed. With. Slasher. Films. Don’t you forget that! Her relationship with Tab (her father) didn't feel fully rooted, which is unfortunate since it’s partially the source of Jade’s quirkiness. I had issue with this, because her obsessive behavior comes from <spoiler>a rape trope, which I really wish writers would stop using</spoiler>. Do we need a reason for “why Jade is JADE?” I don’t think so; it’s personality. Oh, and her mother? She exists. {shrugs}

The plot is a well crafted, and there’s a handy guide is woven throughout the novel, which I originally presumed was for *we* the reader, but it has a recipient. Though informative, the text is still casual in tone, carrying on like an email I would write to a close friend. It’s brilliant, both in education for those of us who are horror “newbs,” and for pacing.

I need to be honest, that I am not someone who gravitates to horror (slasher in particular), so I was surprised by how many noted films I could reflect on thinking “oh, I saw that one!” If you’re just casually curious about slashers and you start with <i>this</i> book, you will cross plot spoilers for a lot of horror films. Has anyone a list of the highlighted movies? Let’s start with <i>Jaws</i>…

This book contains is a <b>lot</b> of gory moments concentrated in the first and final chapters. Things get REALLY gross… but it’s also kinda cool since the delivery is gritty magic. I confess: I really liked it—not the discomfort of humans, nor the maggots, but how the book concludes. Things do get surreal, and it’s a level of weirdness that I am attracted to. If you too like weird-azz books, you should like this too!

While the gore does creep up the charts on “ick” factor, what still has me gagging, <i>months</i> later is Jade using eyeliner from the ladies restroom, which has been in community circulation for an unknown number of years. This grossed me out to a point of shock, to which all the supernatural horror bits caught me in a numbed state. For me, “community eyeliner” crossed a line I didn’t know existed. {shivers}

Reviewer’s note: I was blessed with an advanced eBook version of the text, in exchange for my honest review. Many thanks to Stephen Graham Jones for writing this book, Gallery/Saga Press for gambling the rating on a horror novice, and NetGalley for the opportunity.