I had some issues with this one. I’d say a good two thirds of the book was all over the place and confusing and then the last third things clicked into place.

Much better on the reread!

Actual Rating: 3.75

Such a good read! Jade is a half indian teenager that loves all things about slasher movies. I mean who doesn't right? I read this so fast. Kept my gripping my seat it was so good .

I adore horror movies, and horror books so this main character was a HIT for me. I thought the pacing of the book was a little slow but once it got moving, I was hooked. Horror, Indigenous stories, a struggling small town, so much to unpack and I just kept turning pages. I'm excited to read the follow up, because this books was more then I expected.

My Heart Is a Chainsaw is a chef's kiss! Damn, what a wonderful narrative. It's obvious that SGJ has a love for the slasher genre. I read this book, then immediately listened to the audiobook and purchased a hardcover for the library. My favorite read of 2022. No contest.

This took a while to get into and I almost gave up on it but a friend encouraged me to keep going. I’m so glad I did! It was so fun! I did end up liking Jade (Jennifer) but sometimes she was all over the place. The ending was just bay shit crazy. Slasher gone wild! There is so many red herrings I had no idea who did what, I was just enjoying the ride. Can’t wait to see what this author does next!

It took me a little to get into this book, but once I did what a trip it took you on!

The interspersing of Jade's Slasher essay really added to the understanding that you had of her and her view of the world. i 100% agree with her on her take of Jaws as well!

The last 25 % of the book is a rollercoaster of gore, horror, and a twist I wanted but did not expect!

There was so much chaos - so well written I'm still not exactly sure what how things ended. I began reading Fear the Reaper before this book. Very glad I had this one already on hand as it is needed before the Reaper.
Jade has seemingly always been on the outskirts of Proofrock - living with her dad, rarely seeing her mother. Constant harassment from both her father and his drinking friends, Jade prefers to be either outside of her house or consuming slasher films - her favorite form of escapement.
When Letha moves to town, Jade knows her own personal slasher is about to begin. Letha is the ultimate Final Girl.
With her extra credit submissions for history extra credit, the reader is granted a look into Jade's obsession - all that knowledge, constant references as a way to cope with reality, and the beginning of Jade's obsession.

It took me two starts to really get into My Heart is a Chainsaw, by Stephen Graham Jones. The first time I began to read it and just could not follow what was going on amongst all of Jade's babbling nonsense. My second reading was more successful, but I still am not sure if I like or dislike the book. There was still all this total confusion going on in Jade's thoughts and there were so many side characters that kept being talked about but we're never really flushed out enough for me to even care who they were or their part in the story. I guess you could say that the way the story was approached, relating it to all the slasher films, was somewhat unique, but again, it never really reached it's full potential. I also found the conclusion of the story, unlike the rest of the book, crammed a lot into a single chapter and "The Final Chapters was unfulfilling also. I realize this is the first book in a trilogy and am hoping that the next 2 books far surpass this one.

Two tourists passing through the town of Proofrock find their fun evening of flirtation and skinny dipping turning to horror as something awful tears them apart. Months later, town horror fanatic Jade Daniels finds herself face to face with the start of her very own slasher movie. If she can just follow the clues she is sure she can lead the final girl to success. She can see the dying town she has lived her whole life in have one last hurrah. If she can just convince herself that this is really happening, that she has a purpose here and now, maybe she lived for a reason. Maybe, she can make something of herself before the credits roll.

Stephen Graham Jones’ My Heart is a Chainsaw both fascinates and frustrates me. There is a lack of connection. At once, the book feels like the author knows a great deal about horror movies and their history, but also like that knowledge is just trivia to show that Jade knows her horror. It felt like the bulk of the book lacked real connection to the climax. Like the blurb lacked connection to the book itself.

That sort of lack of connection feels like a lot of where my issue with the book comes from. Jade’s home life is terrible and terribly abusive. Her prospects for a life past high school are desperately bleak, nonexistent even. She has no friends, at most she has two people who actively care about her, neither of whom are her parents. Her life is one ongoing stream of mundane horrors that leaves her obsession with horror movies more than understandable. It makes her almost desperate certainty that she is living in a horror movie make sense, she very much is. But then makes the part where Jade is certain that she is living in a slasher movie fall more than a bit flat, especially when she talks as much about the history of horror as she does about slashers specifically. And that plays rather poorly with a lot of how the book moves for me.

Early on in the book Jade meets the school’s new girl, Letha Mondragon is gorgeous and intelligent and popular and so, so kind. Everything Jade cannot see herself being. Everything she has only one explanation for. Letha must be, has to be, please let her be, the final girl. And if there is a final girl, then Jade desperately hopes that there is a slasher coming soon because that is something she understands, something that can leave her useful and tear every bad thing in Proofrock apart. A big chunk of the book is dedicated to Jade trying to figure out who the slasher is and what their motive might be while also trying to figure out how she can prepare Letha for her destiny as the final girl. This whole chunk of the book drags horribly because it feels like Jones wants to really drive in just how much Jade is using horror movies to cope with her life, to the point that she has no other interests and has let it consume her life to the point that seemingly every paper for her history class was utterly off brief in favor of horror movie history.

Jade is a deeply damaged girl, and I admit that I found myself alternately bracing for her to come to the realization that she was meant to be the slasher, because of how hard her poor mental health and lack of any expectations for a life outside of high school was hammered in, and needing to put the book down because things felt a little too real. And in all the dragging overly tragic first half to first seventy percent of My Heart is a Chainsaw the reader gets a really solid character study of Jade and through her a version of the town of Proofrock, a version that is dying and desperate for the money that the incoming enclave of deeply rich folks is bringing in construction, a tiny and lonely version of Proofrock. It is far from a fun read, but a well-constructed one with a lot more pathos than I had expected from the earliest bits of the book. It builds a story of desperation, a need for a story to be true so deep that Jade feels like she is writing the slasher movie she wants to die in as she goes, just so she can have a purpose.

And then the ending hits and hits hard. We get everything Jade expected and more. We get the big horror movie climax that those dead tourists from the prologue could have lead to. And it just cannot fit. The book goes from this plodding character study, from mundane horrors and tragedies, to this bombastic almost high budget B-movie action and the change over feels so fast that I honestly found myself expecting it to be an “Owl Creek” situation. It was a poor fit all around.

And that is more or less where I find myself hung up on My Heart is a Chainsaw. The book feels disconnected from itself. The writing was well done but the story was a mess. The ending felt like it belonged to another story entirely. I do not even know if I liked it or not, but I know it was exhausting. Jones is clearly a solid writer with a lot of talent, but after this I do not think his work is for me. I give My Heart is a Chainsaw a three out of five. It is worth reading if you want a character study but be ready for that shift at the end.

Of note, this one gets trigger warnings for violence and some fairly gory murders, an attempted suicide, a past instance of incestuous rape, and sexual harassment as well as a whole lot of other sexual misconduct. This is a dark book.

Stephen Graham Jones is a literal gift to horror readers everywhere and this book is no exception. It's not just the story, but the way he writes, that ramps up the horror with every turn of the page.

My first of Stephen Graham Jones' books, but certainly won't be my last! The blurred lines between the supernatural past and present drew me in from the beginning and kept me guessing all the way through. I connected with Jade and could greatly relate to her attitude. She was a complete badass and I cheered for her through the whole book. I can't wait to dive into the next two books.

I was wavering between 3 and 4 stars with this one. The heart of the story is 4 stars, but it kind of dragged on in places, particularly at the end. I skimmed quite a bit because I really just needed to get past the slasher references and metaphors to the meat of what Jones was trying to say. But even his acknowledgments section was a million words long, so maybe he’s just a wordy fella! Either way, the book was interesting and Jones’ voice was unique enough that I do want to read the sequel now that I know about it. I’m too curious to find out what happens to Jade!

This is my second Stephen Graham Jones book and I’m starting to think his writing isn’t for me. The story is fine. Took me a little to get into. I really wasn’t invested.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy. This is my honest review.

Our protagonist, Jade is an outcast with an unloving family and no one to support her. She finds her solace in horror movies, especially slasher movies, and her love for goriness and revenge manifests through the story.

This is a good read for the spooky season. But personally, I found it hard to get invested in the book. The beginning half seemed to drag out with Jade rambling about the movies. I considered DNFing the book several times since its awfully long. Things do come together in the end, but requires patience from the reader.

An amazing horror book that turned out to be so much more. It had me on edge, it had me thinking. I absolutely loved it.

I was looking for a good atmosphere, spooky read to kick off the fall season, and My Heart is a Chainsaw came through! Loved how this pulled apart the classic slasher trope, using the self-aware, meta narrator to comment on the genre. Being inside Jades head throughout the book constantly left me guessing of what was real, what was true, and where the story was heading.

This was my first Stephen Graham Jones, but will absolutely 100% not be my last. Loved this so much!

I found this a very difficult book to like, and a very difficult book to recommend. Jade is a high school senior, living in a remote area of Idaho, and quite a fan of slasher movies. She thinks that her town is facing a cataclysmic event centered around the local lake and new housing, near a camp that has experienced traumatic events in the past. Everything comes to a head on July 4, during a celebration on the lake. The story is odd and the writing is very disjointed. It is difficult to like Jade or to feel any empathy towards her. I can only give this book 2 stars. I hope the next two books in the projected trilogy are better. Thanks to NetGalley, Gallery Books, and Saga Press for providing an ARC.

Stephen Graham Jones doesn't miss. His wide range of skills are evident in My Heart is a Chainsaw as is his great love for slasher media. I cannot remember being this excited about a trilogy in a very long time.

My Heart is a Chainsaw is the highly anticipated horror novel from acclaimed author, Stephen Graham Jones.
On many awards and accolades list for his previous horror novel, The Only Good Indians, I couldn't wait to get my hands on his work especially as a horror fan. I was most excited to get a perspective in horror other than all the white male authors that are herald and instead hear from a Native American author.

Many could criticize the gore and the brutality of this novel because when it gets going, it really gets going. The blows come one after another but my criticism did not lie there at all. My criticism was the length of this novel. Coming in at a whopping 405 pages, this is a NOVEL with a capital N. I wouldn't mind a lengthy story if the pace was set and moved quicker and really grabbed you. But a good 75% of this story is very slow. I had to force myself to continue reading and that just shouldn't be the case in a novel that decimates an entire town. I don't think Jones is my kind of horror author and that's ok. I still recommend him to those looking for Native American authors and horror with heft.

This book felt like such a love letter to slasher films. I really enjoyed it! There were a few moments through the book that i struggled to stay focused on what was occuring. However, I would still recommend this to lovers of horror movies! I look foward to more in the series