Stephen Graham Jones knows slasher. He has seen all the movies, read all the trivia—and he gets slasher.. He loves it. . . Its pureness, its circle of justice, its seductive dance.
My Heart is a Chainsaw is love letter to the genre. The novel is set in a small mountain town where a slasher superfan—a Blackfeet Indian called Jade (not Jennifer!)—starts to think that her movies came to life and her town will be a site of a massacre.
The novel follows the slasher structure with short essays—written by Jade—at the end of the chapters about the genre: the final girl, the slasher, the blood sacrifice and all that. It’s a character-centric novel, and Jade earns the spotlight: she’s funny, brave and. . . special. Messed up, yet not broken.
My Heart is a Chainsaw is a meta take on slashers, but it’s more than just a gimmick; the slasher knowledge is a vital part of the character. . . hence: the Heart in the title.
Written with his extraordinary, sculpted, flowing prose, Jones tells the story of a girl who faces her fears—and the world needs stories like this.

Folks, if you’re looking for a super bloody, creepy-as-hell gore fest as well as some poignant and incisive character development that may have you legitimately tearing up when you aren’t nervously poking your head up to make sure someone in a gas mask isn’t coming for you with a nail gun, then look no further. Another master class in horror, here Jones employs his chewy, run-on, present tense writing to pin the reader like a bug in the world of Jade Daniels: horror movie authority. Jade knows she isn’t final girl material, but she does have an encyclopedic knowledge of horror movies in her head, so when disturbing hints start to point to the fact that the town of Proofrock (which has a bit of a haunted past already) might be the scene of a real-life slasher, she’s the perfect person to help train her new classmate Letha in what it’s going to take to be the last one standing when the credits roll. Unfortunately Letha seems more interested in helping Jade confront whatever might’ve happened in her past to make her love horror movies so much. Jones’ writing can be hard to get the rhythm of at first (he remains one of two, maybe three writers who use present tense in a meaningful way) but it’s worth it to keep at it until it clicks; he simply excels at blending carnage, black humor that made me feel bad for laughing during the carnage (how, for example, “a human standing on the surface of the lake” was so hilarious given the context in which it happened, I’m sure I can’t say), and Jade is one of the best characters I’ve ever read. Would that I could be the one to give her a big mom hug and sit her down and ask her if she liked scary movies, ie, the question she’s always waiting to hear, but spending 400+ pages with her the highlight of my month.

Stephen Graham Jones DOES IT AGAIN. When it comes to the horror genre, Stephen Graham Jones consistently nails it (no pun intended). He has incredible skill in taking all the beloved pieces within the horror genre and playing with them, turning out something completely unique. For me, My Heart Is A Chainsaw took a few chapters to fully fall into it, but as soon I did, I found myself staying up late and racing towards the end. This book is a wild and unpredictable read and Stephen Graham Jones always manages to write the perfect, most visual, terrifying and heart-racing scenes. Every time I thought I had it this book figured out, it took me in a totally different direction. Would love to see this as a movie!

I look forward to buying a hardcopy of this book and rereading it all over again.

Post incoming on Instagram.

Stephen Graham Jones is one of those authors whose books I’ll just read without even knowing what they’re about, because he’s just a really fucking good writer and I know I’m at least going to have a good time whether I love or just like the book, and this didn’t disappoint me. It’s a little more YA than I was hoping for, but I probably could have guessed that by reading the synopsis. Again, I see his name, I read. To be honest, I kind of thought that Jade was kind of a pain in the ass for a good while. She reminded me of the kid from Fade To Black whose just a bit TOO into movies. Then I realized that I’m an educator, and she just sounds like a kid whose really excited about something and just wants someone to listen to her, and I just felt like an asshole. Then, her story got progressively sadder and I felt more like an asshole, but that’s ok. I really think that this is probably his most adaptable work, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this is a series on Netflix in a couple of years. It’s just paced really well with a good mystery and great characters, and feels like it’s made to be a show. Very fun book. It could be a great gateway to get younger audiences into horror movies too, which I love. Well done, sir. Thanks for the ARC, Gallery Books!

When I was growing up, I was a slasher kid. I went everywhere with a Stephen King book in my hands. Decades before we had social media announcing book releases, I knew when there was going to be a new King book and I had it in my hands as soon as I could get my parents to drive me to the closest town with a Waldenbooks store. I needed a place to get lost, and slasher books were my obsession, my haven. My Heart is a Chainsaw took me right back to those days - when I took comfort from the monsters in slasher books and preferred them over the monsters right in front of me. I remember what it’s like to be so terrified that I start grinning and then laughing, and this book brought that feeling back for me.

For a horror fanatic, this book is perfection; if you've never read horror before, this is the perfect book to start with. Starting with that title - I knew I needed this book before I read anything but the title. I jumped in without reading any summary or reviews, and by the end of the prologue I was scared to death. But this book is so much more than horror.

“Jade Daniels, the legend.” I love Jade so much; she stole my heart from the minute I met her. Maybe because so much of Jade Daniels is me when I was 17. Jade gives this story heart, rage and hope.

“It’s more than she could have hoped for, is all she was wishing for.”

My Heart is a Chainsaw is exactly what I was wishing for, and how perfect that I was able to start reading it on Valentine’s Day. This felt like a love letter to slasher fans everywhere, but especially to those who see themselves in Jade Daniels, those who got lost in slashers to escape their own personal boogeyman.

Sorry to keep mentioning Stephen King here, but one of the things I loved about his books was reading the afterword, when he would speak directly to his dear readers. You just know when an author loves his readers, when he knows that he’s just scared the living daylights out of us, and he is absolutely gleeful about that. I love reading about the process of writing a book that gutted me the way this book did. The acknowledgements section of My Heart is a Chainsaw is a love letter to readers, to everyone and every experience that shaped this story.

I found this novel very immersive and finished it in just a couple of days because I basically didn't look up from reading it. The novel is a kind of tribute to the slasher movie, but at the same time, it feels like a fully character-driven story. Interesting, too, to see a horror novel set in Idaho. It gets pretty intense. Some readers may want to look into the content notes/content warnings on this one.

Coming fresh off his very well received novel THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS, Jones delivers another winner with this homage to 80s slasher films...and thankfully this isn’t just a meta trip down memory lane.

Set in a small rural town, high school senior Jade watches (and takes notes) as the rich move in and start to change the landscape. Gentrification is a horror show all its own, and Jade begins to see uncanny comparisons in everything happening around her she has witnessed countless times in the slasher films she has dedicated her life to. Trying hard to graduate and pass her history class, Jade writes extensive papers on the history of the slasher film while trying to deal with being the outcast at her school and live with her perpetually drunk father. We get to read these papers in between chapters, and one section comparing the set up of JAWS to a slasher film is quite interesting.

After suffering abuse at the hands of said father, and after dead bodies start to be discovered, Jade sees the writing on the wall and feels she has been called to train Letha, a new girl in town, on how to be a Final Girl in this developing real-life horror film, which she’s convinced will end in a massacre during the town’s annual 4th of July screening of JAWS at Indian Lake.

Like any good slasher film, Indian Lake and the nearby camp have their own dark history, and as CHAINSAW unreels (if you will), there seems to be a different suspect each time a new corpse is discovered, which helps the third act of Jones’ novel to move at a breakneck pace (and don’t worry, slasher fans...the kill scenes get quite horrific).

A loving tribute to the past with plenty of modern relevancy, MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW is a bit long-winded during its first half, but by the mid-point you’ll be cheering Jade and Letha on as the story takes a spin some may not see coming. Slasher fans will geek-out over the chapter titles, and this geek was thrilled to see 1981’s JUST BEFORE DAWN receive so much love (as well as a vital role in the novel). While much of this reminded me of Andre Duza and Wayne Simmons’ 2015 non-meta 80s homage VOODOO CHILD, CHAINSAW is a fine addition to the growing resurgence of slasher-themed horror novels.

Stephen Graham Jones knocks it out of the park again - he's officially a must-buy author. A recommended first purchase for all fiction collections.

This book belongs in the hands of every person who spent hours combing the horror shelves of the Blockbuster looking for that one perfect scare.

For the horror cinema fan, this is the perfect gateway into contemporary horror fiction. Jade is easily one of my favorite protagonists in many years -- gutsy, complicated, funny, brave, and holding on to a deep well of sadness that you feel even when she's just rattling off slasher facts. She's all of us who've loved slasher films since we were kids, and she's a brilliantly-crafted guide through this world.

There's honestly no one writing like Stephen Graham Jones right now. His voice is so fine-tuned, so honed, so uniquely *his,* that reading his work feels like sitting across a campfire from him, leaning in, as he unwinds a story that's getting formed just as he's telling it. You can get lost in a Jones novel, but you're having so much fun, you don't really care if you never make it out.