This is one intense thriller you do not want to miss! Stephen Graham Jones follows his <i>The Only Good Indians</i> with an homage to slasher films that is horrifically educational and entertaining. Trying to figure out the slasher amidst all the red herrings and film trivia will take all your attention to detail. I wouldn’t want to challenge SGJ to a horror themed trivial pursuit. Jump in to this novel and enjoy your visit to an isolated island - complete with creepy deserted summer camp from hell. It’s sure to slash through the best seller charts!

Thank you so much to #NetGalley, Gallery Books and the talented Stephen Graham Jones for providing me with an electronic ARC in exchange for my honest opinions.

You can follow my reviews at OceansOfBooks.com to see the full review when this fabulous thriller is released Aug. 31, 2021! Be sure to pre-order yours today!

A fabulous contrast to his recent work, Heart is a Chainsaw is a homage to slasher flicks, and within the fiction, almost an education on a bloody golden age of horror. SGJ writes with such confidence and skill, going to places in his works that showcase his skill and talent. This is certainly not just Only Good Indians but more, because that would be lazy. Nope, this work is unique, both more light but deeply cutting.

This incredible thriller kept me on the edge of my seat until the last page. The characters draw you in and the plot is fast paced. I really enjoyed it and looking forward to recommending to friends.

Stephen Graham Jones has such a unique and unorthodox writing style that I find intoxicating.
This book is absolutely a love letter to slasher films and a must read for any slasher fans out there.

That doesn't mean this book isn't without its faults.
My first issue is the constant slasher references. (This coming from someone who is obsessed with slashers and has seen ever one mentioned in this book). There were so many that it slowed the pacing, made the first half of the book a bit tedious and didn't really add much to the plot.
My second issue (and it's a big one) is that this book is much too similar to his previous novel 'The Last Final Girl.'
Similarities include:
~The main character being a girl who is obsessed with slasher films
~The main character relates the circumstances around her to slasher films in order to cope with a not-so-great home life
~The main character uses her knowledge of slashers to navigate around cliched horror scenarios and survive
~An overabundance of horror movie references and insights

That being said, this book (while similar to it's predecessor) is tonally difference. This book is more raw, real and dark. This is largely thanks to the main character. Personally, I loved the character of Jade and related to her so hardcore! Much like her, I've always used horror as a form of comfort and have a particular attachment to slasher films. Jade is probably the best character I've read this year. I love her strength, her vulnerability, and her spirit.
Other high points include a nice not-so-subtle nod to "Friday the 13th" (which is hands down my favorite slasher), an abundance of gore, and an ending that will no doubt haunt your dreams.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Good book! By the end, i had a list of like 10 slasher movies I wanted to see after the main character is constantly referencing them. I feel like this is Stephen Graham Jones's love letter to 80's and 90's slasher movies. Be warmed though....the prose he uses is a bit unorthodox so you really have to pay attention to the dialogue.

One of the things I love most about Stephen Graham Jones is his unique writing style. This man writes horror like no other. I just discovered him last year and with that being said, he has easily become one of my favorite authors.

Jade, a half-Indian high school senior in a gentrified rural town with a haunting past, uses her obsession with 80s slasher movies to cope with her traumatizing childhood, family dynamic and rejection from the entire town. When a dead body of a murdered European tourist is discovered in Indian Lake, she becomes infatuated with the idea of a real life slasher session beginning in her town. She wasn’t wrong…

My Heart is a Chainsaw is a slow burn. At first, I was distracted and slightly annoyed by all the slasher references but it all tied together nicely for a gory and intense ending. If you enjoy slashers and coming of age horror, pick this one up!

Thank you to Stephen Graham Jones, @netgalley, @sagasff and @simonandschuster for my advanced copy in return for review. My Heart is a Chainsaw will be published 8/31/21.

Thank you so much #netgalley for sending me My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones. A true honor to read this book. I really enjoyed it so much more than The Only Good Indians. I was honestly nervous about reading another Stephen Graham Jones because I had a hard time with his writing style. I loved the character Jade. Her love of horror movies and her dealings with her family issues. This book kept me on my toes and I couldn't put it down. It was a disturbing slasher story. A definite read for horror fans.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for this ARC. I’m happy to provide my honest review.
#NetGalley #GalleryBooks #StephenGrahamJones
“My Heart is a Chainsaw” is a delightful homage to the delicious horror/slasher genre. This novel tells the story of Jade Daniels, who is understandably angry after an abusive childhood and takes solace in horror movies, particularly slasher movies.
This book was delicious!!! Jade’s extensive knowledge of horror movies reminds me of me in the best way. I loved all the horror information. It’s strangely comforting. Thankfully, not for the same reasons as Jade. This first part of this book is a slow burn. Because Stephen Graham Jones has such a distinctive style of writing, he makes you work for the payoff. The payoff does come, however, and it is glorious!! This is the type of gore that I love!! This author never disappoints me.
This book, like all of his others, is not an easy read in any sense of the word. His writing style forces you to pay attention and take your time. He is the master of the truly slow burn. This book can, occasionally, be a bit too slow. Believe me when I say that it’s worth it.
Please read this, preferably around Halloween.

This title will be included in the upcoming July 2021 issue of FANGORIA magazine. Publishers can contact the reviewer directly for a PDF copy of the write up when it becomes available.

Jones’ protagonist, Jade, is a 17 year old girl with a bleak future. She’s also witty, creative (at least with her hair), and a slasher film aficionada. She thinks a movie-like slasher event is going to unfold in her little town.

Jade is awesome in all her sarcasm, intelligence, and drive. I wanted to reach into the book and rescue her from her dysfunctional family and missed opportunities. She is the best part of the book and worth reading just to cheer her on.

Other positives of the book: Jones’ prose is easy to “listen” to in your head as you read. It’s like Jade is sitting right there, telling you her story. The other characters come alive in the dialogue passages. (Jones is SO good at dialogue.) The reading experience was a pleasure.

If you are familiar with horror’s popular slasher films over the past few decades (e.g., Friday the 13th), then you will get even more out of My Heart Is a Chainsaw.

Plenty of gore for horror fans.

I did run into a couple of negatives, though. Jones alludes to slasher films so often that if you are more of a reader than a movie watcher, there’s a lot that will go over your head.

Also, Jade’s essays for her teacher, starting back when she was 14, sound awfully mature and cogent. I didn’t believe that a 14-to-17-year-old who struggles in school wrote them. (And they could get rather lengthy, so I lost interest a couple of times.)

Finally, the middle of the story is slow. I almost DNF’d but glad I didn’t because the fun (horror “fun”) part of the book starts about two-thirds of the way through.

Overall, this is another great SGJ’s story, but not my favorite. I received an advanced copy of My Heart Is a Chainsaw from NetGalley, and I’m happy to share my thoughts. Four stars.

First and foremost, My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones is incredible. While I thought The Only Good Indians was only "good", I saw so much potential and knew I had to read more of this author. Mapping the Interior was amazing and I plan to read more-which is why SGJ is climbing the ranks of my favorite authors. My Heart is a Chainsaw tells the story of Jade, a troubled teen with a deep love for slasher films and uses them as a way to cope with the real life horrors that plague her; but the slashers she loves might be crossing the line from fiction into reality.

The book starts off slow but this time is so well used to help get to know Jade outside of her rough exterior. However, once you hit that 40%ish mark, the book moves at break-neck speed and goes headlong into the blood soaked waters of the lake that Jade lives by. There are some scenes in this book that are so haunting that they will really stick with me. The writing was so vivid that it made Jade's small town truly feel lived in with a rich history accompanying it.
This book also has a subtle but effective commentary on the gentrification of Indigenous-Americans, something that is rarely discussed in the media. This real-life horror was seamlessly woven into the hack-and-slash horrors of the story.
-I can also see this being perfectly adapted into an HBO mini-series ala Sharp Objects.
TW: sexual assault, self-harm, suicide, child abuse, gore

Thank you Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

I tried extremely hard to get into this but the writing style just wasn’t for me at all. I was confused for a lot of this book.

Simply brilliant and like nothing I’ve read before! This book did take a little bit to get going but when it took off it never stopped. I enjoyed our, MC, Jade very much and I find myself thinking back on her story even now. A truly well-written character. And SGJ can write some killer prose (pun intended).

Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for the ARC. I have already preordered the hardback.

Wow! What a finish! This book is a bit tough to review, as I found it uneven and very slow at times (sometimes even excruciatingly so) but then there are portions of such chaotic, gory brilliance that all the plodding that came before is largely forgiven.

In a lot of ways, My Heart is a Chainsaw feels like the big sister companion piece to The Last Final Girl, so it’s interesting that I read them back to back. The general structure of both books is similar, complete with a quirky oddball protagonist who has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things slasher. In Chainsaw, we follow Jade, a self-identified eccentric outcast who serves as our local guide to the isolated lakeside town of Proofrock. In this book, Jones better succeeds at interweaving Jade’s slasher obsession into the narrative, largely delving into various movie tropes and insider knowledge via “history” papers she drops off into her patient teacher’s inbox for extra credit. While this works okay structurally, I still found some of the slasher movie info-dumps/references inserted into the story dialogue to be grating rather than charming. Life hasn’t been kind to Jade, and slasher movies are her comfort and chosen escapism, but that doesn’t mean I found the multiple diatribes about topics such as Jaws’ or Halloween’s pervasive cultural influence to be necessary or beneficial to the story. Often times the story stalled because the only thing happening was Jade obsessing about some particular facet of slasher lore.

What elevated this book for me, from a middling to a great review, was the horror elements. The opening prologue and the final third of the book are balls to the wall slashertastic blood baths that would make the greats like Carpenter or Craven applaud. Jones’ love for the genre is evident from the get go, and he does a fantastic job of balancing bone chilling with B-movie gorefest in a way that even newcomers to horror will appreciate. Jade steps into her own by the time the credits roll, and her journey of self-actualization throughout Chainsaw is earnest and builds to a satisfying end. Jade does not become a formidable protagonist in spite of her past trauma, but because she comes to accept herself for who she is and what she’s been through. An emotional yet subtle journey, contained within a book that’s anything but.

My Heart Is a Chainsaw is at once a love letter to the slasher films of the 70s and 80s and an ode to the tenacity of the human spirit. Full of surprises and shocks right up until the very end!

Gory. Gross. Disgusting. Amazing. I loved this so much, and I'm normally not one for gore. SGJ just has a way with words. The man can write like none other. I will read anything he puts out.

I've been meaning to pick up this author for a while now since everybody compares him to Jordan Peele. I went into this expecting to be wowed and obsessed and in awe of the whole story...but in actuality, I wasn't a huge fan of this. I think the concept is great and I came to really enjoy and appreciate the second half, but I had a lot of problems (mostly personal preference) that limited my experience and made me more frustrated than anything else.

Number one, and my biggest...complaint? is that this book is for a very niche group of people. Even though I myself did enjoy parts of it and I had some knowledge that buoyed me through the book, this book is about slashers and I think to fully comprehend and enjoy it you need to have that background knowledge going in. While I could vaguely understand some of the more obvious references, a lot of the films and characters and quotes described are very very niche and so I felt like half the time I was just trying to understand what was being referenced. Which I think is more on me than the author — I knew it was going to be about slashers, so I should've done my research probably — but I think if you're looking to read this, keep that in mind!

I also had a hard time getting into the narration and voice of the main character. I came to really love her as the story went on, but especially at first it was just...difficult to read. But again, that could be personal preference. I just did not click with the writing style, and I also wasn't a huge fan of the little extra credit Slasher 101 essays that were sprinkled throughout the book. I felt like they didn't add much, and most of the time I barely knew what they were trying to say anyway.

What I will say, is that even though I had a hard time getting into the story and I thought the beginning was very very slow, I still really enjoyed this. Especially the second half! I think once we started getting some more killing and gore I was interested in seeing where it all was going. And that ending was just...wild. Totally worth the slow beginning just for that big scene at the end.

I think some people (most people) won't vibe with this book, and personally I wanted more from it, but I think it really made me interested in pursuing more horror and maybe picking up more from this author. For the right person — someone who KNOWS slashers — I think this book could be really really groundbreaking. But for someone who's just passively interested in some scary movies and a good horror mystery...this wasn't really that special to me. But I so wish it was!!

Anyone that's been following Stephen Graham Jones for any length of time, either as a reader or just through social media, knows that the man is a hardcore slasher film aficionado. The dude loves this particular subgenre of horror and My Heart Is A Chainsaw is his cleverly crafted, oh so loving ode to Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Ghostface, and every Final Girl that (at least temporarily) put an end to their reign of terror.

Like Jones, his heroine, recent high school grad Jade, is a slasher flick obsessive, so full of trivia that it literally spills out of her. She's a social pariah, but when the bodies of murdered teenagers start appearing around town, she's the only one who has any clue what's happening. She's seen enough movies and knows enough about the urban legends of Proofrock, Idaho that only one thing makes any sort of sense at all. Obviously, there's a slasher at work here, and she believes that recent rich-girl transplant, Letha Mondragon, is the soon-to-be final girl. Jades takes it upon herself to try and train Letha in all-things horror so that the young woman can survive her destiny in this slasher flick come to life.

I'm fairly certain everything Jones knows about slashers (and he is indeed a considerable fount of knowledge) makes its way onto the page here via Jade, but also through the book's tone, rhythm, and attention to tropes. My Heart Is A Chainsaw is a slow-burn sort-of mystery as Jade attempts to figure out who the killer is. Her efforts put her up against the small-town Sheriff and spark a few other interesting conflicts, especially between her and her alcoholic father.

Jade herself is an intriguing and immediately captivating character, and I love that she sees herself more as a mentor and guide for Letha rather than the final girl. Jade isn't a hero and knows as much, and even goes so far as to adamantly refuse to cast herself as the lead of this movie turned real, despite being our central character. It's a nicely subversive move from an author who routinely subverts expectations and, in the process, elevates the material to the next level. In fact, it's because of Jones' subversive nature that I constantly found myself questioning Jade's mental state and reliability, and was wholly engaged in discovering what she might say or do next.

My Heart Is A Chainsaw is a nicely complicated and richly themed slasher flick in prose form. We get some neat meditations on class and social status, and how those elements can impact the final girl trope, as well as how genres continually evolve and build off what came before. It's slick and smart, and the intense, chaotic, bloody climax practically begs for a big-screen adaptation. Jones is a potent force and, having just received two Stoker Awards a week ago for his 2020 novel, The Only Good Indians, and the novella Night of the Mannequins, this book is another clear win for him.

Special thanks to @netgalley @gallerybooks and @sagasff for the advanced reader copy of this title in exchange for an honest review!

My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

Genre: Horror or more specifically a literary allude to horror films!

Synopsis: Proofrock is a small town in Idaho with not a lot going on. Or at least that is how it seeks to the common eye. Jade on the other hand, expert of all things slasher, senses that something evil is afoot and that her love for horror is about to become a reality. Switching between the viewpoint of Jade and Jade’s “Slasher 101” essay she wrote for a history class, My Heart is a Chainsaw is sure to please any horror lover’s heart.

Things to note/trigger warnings: if you don’t like an unreliable narrator move along this is not for you! TW: child abuse, rape, death of animals, gore, attempted suicide, murder, and moreeee gore.

Review: Let me start by saying this is my second book I’ve read by SGJ, the first being The Only Good Indians. I liked this book A LOT better than The Only Good Indians but still finished the book with the same “wtf did I just read?” feeling. I honestly might go back and read the last 40 pages of this just to try to comprehend my feelings of this book. What I did love was following Jade’s inner thoughts, although she was definitely an unreliable narrator. I loved her knowledge for horror and watching what happens play out from her viewpoint. Also I’m so sad thinking about her. I’ve read some reviews saying if you love slasher films you will love this book and while that may be true, I think there is a deeper message about childhood trauma that is seeped into the blood and gore of this book. While it was a slow burn and I’m still left processing, this one is going to be a good one and I give it four stars. Get your hands on it August 31, 2021!

A Tough Read

I was anxious to read this book because of the hype and expected to be bedazzled with the premise and the slasher obsessions. I was not bedazzled; in fact, I was underwhelmed. It is a fact that I have not read much of this genre, but it shouldn’t make any difference. An author should be able to reach almost any reader to the point that the reader understands what’s going on. I fell into the first chapter easily and expected it to gain momentum; it didn’t for me. It failed miserably.

The author switched from third person (telling us about the trauma of Jade’s childhood) and then I was lost when the slasher obsessions became her way of coping. I didn’t know what was real after a few chapters. Was she disturbed and fixated on her abusive childhood? It was difficult to get through, even the last few chapters were convoluted. The book was disturbing, that is indisputable.

My gratitude to NetGalley and Gallery/Saga Press for this pre-published book. All opinions expressed are my own.