Horror stories, are, I’ve always assumed, an acquired taste. Like olives. You either like ‘em or you don’t. I write myself and put a story out on offer the other day—free, mind you—and had a fellow come back and say, “Sorry, I’m not in a place I can read that sort of thing right now.”

I suppose I get it, being in kind of a dark place personally myself right now as I’m sure a lot of us are…there’s simply things I don’t feel like doing under present cirumstances. TV, for example, doesn’t get a lot of time for me. I do read a lot though, and it’s the darker tales that tend to keep me occupied and divert me from my own rather dimly-lit life. Mostly it’s short stories, but sometimes a novel comes along…

F’r’instance: Stephen Graham Jones. I’ve read and enjoyed some of his short work, most recently “This Was Always Going To Happen” in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year collection (which is essential, by the way.) Now, one upside to reading such annuals is that you get to sample writers you may never have experienced before. My usual example of this phenomenon is the brilliant Priya Sharma, whom I discovered in Paula Guran’s Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror collections. But now it seems I will have to add Jones to my “must buy” list, for his new work, “My Heart Is A Chainsaw”, is astonishing.

As a racing fan, I can appreciate someone who devotes themselves to a topic, genre, or whatnot. Jade Daniels is just such a character, and her thing is horror flicks, details of which she can recite off the top of her head like my brother does music, or Donald Davidson can recall Indy 500 trivia. It’s very possible she’s eidetic, though it’s more likely she’s just incredibly obsessive. But there’s more to her than a mere fangirl: she also knows, in nauseating detail, how horror movies are constructed and the arcane rules thereof…and when things hit close to home—namely, Proofrock, Idaho, where she may or may not be about to graduate from High School—she feels she’s been called upon to Save Everyone.

As it happens, Jade’s graduation—and thus, her escape from Proofrock—kinda hinges on her history grade, and in hope of obtaining extra credit she is submitting essays on horror flicks to her favorite teacher, Mr. Holmes, because...well, why not? Exactly why horror movie details count toward a history grade I don't quite grasp, but never mind, never mind. Her detailed synopses do make nice interstitials amongst the furious action. Dig them, all of them, if for no other reason that they give you a chance to breathe. You’ll need every breath too.

On to the matter at hand: there’s someone carving up the good folk of Proofrock, or, more correctly, the new and ever-so-exclusive settlement of Terra Nova, which just happens to be sited on ground that once was a Sleepaway Camp (see what I did there?) and which has a awful lot of blood soaked ground…hence the nickname, Camp Blood. There’s one wonderfully gross bit here where Jade and her presumed “Final Girl”, one lovely Letha Mondragon, hide out in a pile of rotting elk corpses. BUT WAIT! It gets grittier! Here’s a bit of what ultimately happens to the so-called "Final Girl":

“No, now she’s gasping, blood sheeting down over her face from a gouge across what used to be her eyebrow, and that eye’s not moving with her other one anymore, but that’s nothing—her jaw. It’s been wrenched out of place, cracked away at the hinges, so her chin’s hanging low and crooked. The only reason it’s still even close to in place, isn’t torn away and tossed aside to sink is…it’s her moisturizer regimen isn’t it? Her skin was elastic enough to hold on.”

EEGAH! This is not a story for the weak of stomach.

Mind you, the whole concept of the “Final Girl” is kinda pivotal here, and just when Jade thinks she’s got it figured out, she finds out she might have it wrong...dead wrong. The action builds and builds through several climaxes…seriously, just when you think it’s safe to go back in the water…HAH! Look around! THERE’S CHUM (and chums!) EVERYWHERE!

What this is, it’s loads of creepy, bloody, gory delight, and if I’d have been inclined to keep a body count it would be in the dozens. But it’s all in good fun, and the esteemed Jade Daniels goes to the top of my list of Horror Heroines for 2021. Better still, Stephen Graham Jones goes straight to the top of my Must Read list. How about “The Only Good Indians” next? Yes, I think so…

Another terrifying social commentary from SGJ.

Both an homage to the slasher genre and a critique of gentrification and American colonialism, Stephen Graham Jones knows how to scare and enlighten us.

Jade Daniels is dealing with a lot. Between the loneliness of her mother's abandonment, her abusive father, and being estranged from her town, Jade seeks solace and comfort in horror movies. But when those movies come to life on the waters of Indian Lake, she uses her knowledge of slashers and masked murderers to get ahead of the very real killer in town.

The gist: There’s no two ways about it, My Heart is as Chainsaw is a masterclass in slasher history and execution. Jones has woven slasher lore through a slasher tale that still punches you in the gut with a fist full of heart.
It’s a real deconstruction of slasher history, with sections dedicated to Jade’s papers on slasher films that genuinely made me want to watch and re-watch some of the classics of the genre. But the core of the story is about real lives and real trauma, and a character who escapes into the horror of film as a recourse from the horrors of life.
For me, the best horrors are those that play with the idea of horror, that toy with the focus of fear, our understanding of monsters. And Jones does that so expertly he’s absolutely one of my ‘go-to’ horror authors.
I hugely enjoyed The Only Good Indians, and although My Heart is a Chainsaw is in some ways a different beast, it still has heart pulsing through the horror. Oh, and some elk, but it’s probably better you find out about them for yourself…
Favourite line: it’s all deadly in the wrong hands, with the right intent.
Read if: You want an education in slasher history, and a slasher story that will do it’s best to break your heart.
Read with: An archive of slasher films ready to watch with new eyes. And by new eyes, I mean, a fresh look, don’t be going and getting yourself anybody else’s, that’s the start to another story…

Review to be published at www.thedustlounge.com closer to publication date

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones is a great story. and Stephen Graham Jones's writing is spectacular and breathtaking.

When reading the description for this book, I went in expecting something much more serious. Jade is a horror movie obsessed teen getting ready to graduate and move into adulthood. Much of the story is broken up with extra credit assignments written to her teacher explaining her love for horror movies and their formula. Just the right amount of gore, maybe not quite enough of a backstory, and a perfect amount of early horror movie nostalgia.

I was a huge fan of Stephen Graham Jones' Only Good Indians, and so I was beyond excited to have the opportunity to read this ARC. It did not disappoint. A gory and complex tribute to slashers, My Heart Is a Chainsaw is the story of Jade, slasher fan and NOT final girl material. But that's alright. Because no matter how much she might try to frame it as such, her life is not a slasher film: it's something darker and more complicated, and not everything follows the rules that she's so familiar with.
To ensure that the reader is familiar with slashers, SGJ uses a framing device that I always love and presents us with Jade's "extra credit" history project: A history and explanation of the slasher and its many complicated tropes and character beats. I'm a huge slasher fan, but even so, Jade's voice was a welcome lens through which my own personal knowledge was reframed and structured. There is also something else hiding in those excerpts, a horror that is more Jaws than Halloween, with the monster and the horror of it all staying almost out of sight for most of the book. There is not a lot I can say about this book without spoiling all of its twists and turns: SGJ keeps you guessing about what *type* of slasher this is going to be until the very end, pulling rabbits out of his hat like a magician and carrying you along on a wild, bloody, horrifying ride.
The only reason this is not a five star is because I found it a little slow to start, and some of the emotional beats did not quite grip me in the same way that TOGI did last year. However, this is nothing short of a brilliant horror novel and one that I imagine will be better upon a reread, just like Friday the 13th or Scream is better the second time you watch it.

I received this book as an arc from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I love all things horror, scary, paranormal, zombie, slasher....
That being said, Jade was the main character I didn't know I needed.
Since discovering Stephen Graham Jones I'm pretty much obsessed with his writing.
Jade is 17 years old. She's an outlier of sorts, finding escape in horror movies. Specifically slasher flicks. Escape from the isolation she feels and the abusive father she lives with.
So when a series of odd deaths start happening in the town she lives in rural Idaho (the deaths somehow happening to the wealthy residents) she tries to warn everyone. Who would know when there is going to be a killing spree better than a horror movie devotee?
This book is a mash up of horror with comedy. This is the second book I've read that makes gentrification even more sinister. Read if you want something atmospheric and creepy.
4.5 stars

I don't really know how to rate this. It's an audacious ran through slasher history, an attempt to be both meta and true-to-the-form... and frankly it feels overwhelming, during the reading and after. Confusing at times, heart-pounding at others.

While I'm not into horror in general, I'm a big fan of Stephen King, I feel like his novels have taken a step away from the truly scary genre, and Stephen Graham Jones seems to have filled the gap. Excellent writing, good chilling scares, and an all-around good book. It takes a while to get started (I do admit there were times I almost gave up) but it's a book the rewards you for sticking with it. If Stephen Graham Jones isn't already on horror fans' "Must-Buy" list, he's going to earn that spot very quickly.

Didn't hit QUITE like The Only Good Indians, but this was still a magnificent read. My Heart Is a Chainsaw is a love letter to slasher films and let me tell you, if you love horror and you love slasher flicks, this book is filled with enough gore and references to make you GIDDY. I feel like I haven't read anything like this before, and I'm SO here for it.

I also really appreciated Jade's essays peppered in.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and Gallery Books in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for allowing me to review this title , unfortunately I have to say that I put it down at 22 % because I lost interest.as the horror references did not make sense to me. Therefore I struggled to connect with our main character.

I must begin by saying that I love Stephen Graham Jones. The Only Good Indians blew my socks off last year. If you enjoyed that, you'll enjoy this. This feels like a mixture of one of his earlier works, The Last Final Girl in its absolute love and adoration of Horror as Meta, but has the raw emotional tug of Only Good Indians. Jade is a complicated protagonist, exerting her limited control over the world and her situation as best she can. She views the events going on around her in the only way that makes sense to her, through the lens of the Slashers she used to escape. But, Jade is probably on to something here. Are we ever really the hero in our own story?

Ummm WHAT! I absolutely loved this novel! The only thing keeping it from 5 stars was, while the intro was super interesting, I felt it dragged a lot to get where it ended up. In the end I gave it 4.5 stars because the movie references were PERFECT, the main character was hilariously creepy, and I really enjoyed the POV. Also, I’m a sucker for mixed media - and this includes papers the main character has written for class & I loved it! Highly recommend, especially if you’re a fan of The Only Good Indians! Stephen Graham Jones as such a way with creepy.. I absolutely love it.

I already love Stephen Graham Jones, and he's outdone himself yet again. My single complaint would be that the stream-of-consciousness voice from the narrator, Jade, is sometimes hard to follow. Overall, though, it's nothing less than a love letter to slasher films and to horror movies (and the entire genre) as a whole. Another solid offering from an established master of horror.

Last year I called Stephen Graham Jones a national treasure for his stunner of a novel, THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS. This year Jones returns with a new novel, MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW, that should place him into any discussion of best horror genre author past or present. The novel starts briskly with one of the best prologues I’ve ever read. It is bookended by my favorite climaxes in recent memory. Sandwiched between these two points is a story that is at turns funny, horrifying, heartfelt, and just damn good.

Proofrock, Idaho has a slasher problem, but only local teen Jade Daniels seems to know it. The town also has new residents across the lake. Some very wealthy folks are building homes on what was once national park land. Is one of these outsiders the killer, or is it a local person with a grudge, or did a character of local lore come back to seek some sort of revenge? As the bodies start to pile up Jade is determined to help the new girl become the hero, or the classic slasher trope of the “final girl”.

The book has a wealth of additional slasher film tropes and there are numerous references to slasher movies, both mainstream and more obscure. Don’t worry if you aren’t well versed in the slasher film genre — throughout the book Jade schools the read on “Slasher 101”. These interludes are a fantastic source of information for slasher film buffs, but will be even more helpful if you aren’t a massive horror movie nerd. It is a great tool that really helps the reader get into the mind of Jade.

Every character in this book feels like they are straight out of the great unmade slasher movie of the 1980s. Each and every one of them may or may not be the killer and we learn just enough about each one of them to make them a suspect. A wonderful job is done in revealing the backstory of Jade as her history is brought into focus throughout the novel. She is such a beautifully scarred character that wraps herself up in horror movies as a shield against the world around her. It takes a deft hand to write a teenage character that feels real and not just a stereotypical representation like you would see in A LOT of slasher films.

I would love to discuss the fantastic end of the book, but it is so special that I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. The final two chapters rank near the top for sheer emotional impact, and I’m still moved by them several weeks after finishing the book.

MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW more than lives up to all the early buzz and should quickly find it’s way onto the to-be-read list for fans of horror fiction or anyone who wants to dip their toes into the genre for the first time.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for the advance copy. Preorder your copy now! MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW will be released August 31st, 2021.

I don't have to warn you about spoilers because I didn't get far enough to spoil anything. I read a little over half of this novel and simply had to abandon it in utter frustration. And I'm as shocked as anyone.

Full disclosure, I also didn't enjoy Jones' much lauded earlier novel, "All the Good Indians," so perhaps I'm just not the right audience for this. However, the issue with that novel was more about his rather odd sentence structure that I couldn't get used to, whereas the story itself was at least entertaining.

Here however ... it was just ... well, awful.

And I feel like I need to get some credentials. I LOVE horror movies, and especially slashers, which is a HUGE plot point for the protagonist of this novel about a young woman who sees everything through the eyes of slasher movies and becomes convinced that one is taking place in her small town.

Sounded right up my alley.

But Jones takes forever to get going. Most of the novel - or at least all that I could stand reading - was one long inner-monologue, and after a while I found myself shouting, "OK. We get it. You really like horror movies."

It just read like Jones desperately needed an editor. Plus, the whole Final Girl bit has kinda been done to death. Sure, 25 years ago, it would have been downright revolutionary in a pre-Scream world, but here it just felt tired and after hoping against hope that it would get better, I for one, realized that I just didn't care and moved on with my life.

So, it's been 24 hours since I finished reading My Heart is a Chainsaw and I still don't know what to say. I'm still processing it. I'll say some piddly things to see if my mind starts to work.

A) If Jade was a real teenage girl and not fictional, she should grow up to be a writer. Her essays are a hoot.
B) Stephen Graham Jones grew up to be a writer so he could write for Jade. The world has a way of working things out.
C) You do not want to be an elk in a Jones novel. I think an elk must have frightened him as a child and he's never forgiven it. We've got another pile of elk in this book, but in a completely different piled up way.

Now that I've warmed up, here's the review. To me, the best horror is psychological horror where we don't know if the bizarre happenings are happening or if the protagonist's mental state is questionable. We know Jade had a terrible childhood, is still with the father who caused the terrible childhood, is disliked and ignored at school (after being out of class for six weeks, the other students didn't notice she was back,) and doesn't see a way out. She immerses herself in slasher films and slasher lore as an outlet. But, she is incredibly intelligent which only her history teacher and the town's sheriff seem to notice.
Some reviewers have said they're confused. I think we're meant to question what's going on, to see what we want to see. Is there a supernatural killer, a killer at all, or has Jade slipped into her own fantastical slasher world? And the ending ending, the one that follows the gory grand finale, is not something we saw coming at all. Yet, the unusual ending makes perfect sense because it tells us what Jade wanted all along.

The main thing I like about the two books I've read by Stephen Graham Jones is that they're literary novels that happen to be horror. They're not like the pulpy horror books where you kind of know what will happen before it happens. There's a lot to ponder in this novel. I'll probably be thinking about it for a long time.

I received an ARC via Netgalley for this incredible novel by Stephen Graham Jones.

My God, I loved it. It is filled with slasher movie references and it made me feel proud to actually get them all. I connected with Jade, the main character, in a very special and deep way. The thoughts she had, the constant connecting of horror movies to her everyday situations, it felt like reading a story about myself at times. If you love slasher films from the 70s to the present, there is no way you can read this book without feeling right at home and among friends.

Jade is from a broken home, doesn’t much enjoy going to school, but really wants to work her way out of the town of Proofrock and her father. When some mysterious murders take place, her horror-buff mind goes into overdrive, making connections and seeking out the who the Final Girl will be when their town’s ‘movie’ ends. We get to explore the possibilities of who the murderer is and why each victim may have been chosen, all while learning about Jade and the town’s past.

It is so well-written. I loved so many of the characters deeply. Jade, who came off hard and unfeeling to others at times, was actually filled with compassion for those around her. The time spent suspecting each character was equally spent caring about them and being surprised by their actions. Unlike a great deal of slasher movies, I actually went through the whole book being unsure of who the killer was until it was revealed.

I was shocked, battered, and broken by the end of this book. Stephen Graham Jones sawed my heart in half. I cried when I was done, for the justice and injustices that were prevalent in the story and in reality. I had to clean my bathroom right after I finished this book, and I was weeping while I did it, unable to stop thinking about it.

This book holds a special place in my horror-loving heart. It has fun, fright, suspense, big emotions, and will leave you torn to pieces. Please, read it.

This wasn't the easiest read. I came to this after reading Jones' masterpiece, The Only Dead Indians, and was, I confess, looking for more of the same. I wasn't expecting this almost phantasmagoric, stream-of-consciousness, first person, fever dream of a novel. It's an extended take on a slasher movie, as a young girl in a small town in Idaho uses her encyclopedic knowledge of the same to assist another girl that she thinks is the ideal "final girl" to battle the slasher who's come to town. Jones has written a love letter to the slasher movies he grew up on and this book is the product. It isn't always easy to follow just what's going on and the jump from one idea/thought to another isn't always that clear, but I have to confess I was riveted to the page and could hardly put this book down. The chapters where Jade includes excerpts of her "term papers" on horror (that teacher must really be a saint to allow these as extra credit assignments) are loving tributes to the slasher film, including such arguments as why the film Jaws qualifies as a slasher. This book may not be for everyone, but I really enjoyed it. Be sure to read the author's notes at the end, too.

Fans of Stephen King will love this book. It is a horror buffs dream come true with all the mentions of the best horror movies ever. The story revolves around horror expert Jade Daniels who thinks something is up in her tiny town of Proofrock Idaho. As new posh gated community is setting up shop on the other side of the lake, people in town start dying. Jade believes there’s something sinister at work. The story also touches on the teens battle with violence at home. Jade is a survivor.