I unfortunately didn’t get along with this book and DNFed it. I apologize, but thank you for the opportunity to read and review this.

The burn is slow but well worth it.
Jade Daniels is a horror fan, particularly slasher films, and is an expert on the subject. Her narration is spread through with high school essays she writes, and through these 'Slasher 101' installments, the tone for the story is set, and also the reader receives a primer on all of the killers and slasher tropes that are the basis for her suspicions.

Is it because Jade knows so much that she's becoming paranoid? Around her town, which is becoming increasingly more gentrified with a large development being build across the lake, She notices some weird happenings, just like in a slasher flick, but is it real, or is she so caught up that she's seeing what's not there?

Stephen Graham Jones says in the author's note how hard he worked to write the book, and not only does it absolutely show, but all that work is definitely appreciated; I can't wait for the next one!

Unfortunately I had to DNF this book at 37%. I tried, I really did. The writing was well done and the story is probably great, it's just not for me.

I didn't like Jade's character - I have learned recently that I am just not into books about slasher movies. And honestly, I feel like it's been done a lot lately (or I just don't like them so I notice them even more!). I typically do like quirky characters but I found Jade obnoxious and without enough redeeming qualities.

I also didn't enjoy Only the Good Indians so I was hoping that it was a fluke because I do think Graham Jones is an incredibly talented author. It's evident that his style and genre just isn't for me.

Thank you to Gallery Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review.

While this book had a lot of promise, unfortunately the execution fell short for me. I found the main character hard to like and couldn't finish the book.

This was an excellent read. I read it in 3 days and for a longer novel, I’d characterize it as “un-put-downable”.

I was totally immersed in Slasher 101 and the main character, Jade. I’m a slasher fan myself and loved all the references to the 80’s classics like Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween and Friday the 13th. Jade was a true delight. She was strange and an outcast but this just pulled the reader in all the more.

The side characters were just as well written. Holmes the flying history teacher, Hardy the small town sheriff and Letha the perfect “Final Girl. I felt like I was a citizen of Proofrock for 3 days and I wish I could live in a cabin in “Camp Blood”

Listen, I know I’m late to the SGJ party. I haven’t (yet) read THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS, or any of the other titles in Stephen Graham Jones’s catalog (and I will), but I simply could not resist MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW once I read the synopsis. An unlikely heroine from the “wrong side of the lake” who’s a horror-slasher cinephile? You have my attention. A slasher story inside, effectively, a slasher documentary? I’m listening. A slasher murder mystery with a hint of supernatural horror, a dose of social commentary, and a healthy helping of gore? TAKE MY MONEY.

Half-Indian and all angry, Jade Daniels is an outcast in her small, marginalized community of Proofrock, Idaho. She’s the town eccentric, and she’s only just graduated high school–well, sort of graduated, as her history teacher, Mr. Holmes (Bear, not Sherlock) still has her on the hook for unfinished work, which she’s doling out in creative essays on all-things-slasher. Her family life is bleak, her future, nonexistent. And, as a group of wealthy elitists descend on her town to erect an idyllic community on the other side of a Probably Haunted lake, just past a camp that was the site of Something Terrible a few decades before, Jade (not Jennifer, thank you) is convinced that Proofrock has all the pieces assembled to soon play host to a new slasher. At least she has something to look forward to.

Full of twists, turns, terrific horror references, and enough witty one-liners to shake a stick at, MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW is all the best parts of every slasher film cobbled together, set to tune, and let free to rip your throat out. And sure, while Letha Mondragon may be the most quintessential final girl ever, Jade Daniels is still the one you can’t wait to see rising up, crawling out, fighting back–again, and again, and again.

All I can say is I can’t wait to dive into the next book in The Lake Witch Trilogy: DON’T FEAR THE REAPER.

This one was a little rough to get into but half way into the book o finally was able to enjoy the read

I really wanted to love this book. I would've been happy with just LIKING it. But I didn't. The main character had so much potential but just fell flat. The plot was so repetitive. It felt like two-thirds of the book was just a synopsis of every slasher movie out there. Literally. The main character actually speaks the entire plot to some. I actually enjoy this authors other books so I'm chalking this up to just not my favorite by him.

(DNFing this at about the halfway mark).

It pains me to say that a book all about slashers was dreadfully, terribly boring and yawn inducing. I absolutely loved <u>The Only Good Indians</u>. It was probably one of my favorite horror books of 2020! But Chainsaw just doesn't compare. Jade's voice is inauthentic and extremely confusing to read/follow. Not to mention that nothing happens for chapters at a time. (I mean she spent 20 pages in the police office just stuffing and licking envelopes!) I have way too many books on my TBR shelf to waste any more time on this one. I hope Jones writes some more standalone books in the future, but I'm giving up on this series.

My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones was received directly from the publisher and I chose to review it. Though this author has many published works to his name, I do not recall reading any of them in the past. To start out, I read the first paragraph and realized it was one long run-on sentence. I was reading an ARC so hopefully that was picked up and corrected before the book went public. The book kept me reading, in the hopes that something REALLy interesting would happen. I was not a big fan of the jumping around, or the inner turmoil portrayed in the dialogue. However, unlike other reviewers, the slasher movie trivia inserts kept me reading the book.

3 Stars

Jade Daniels is a social outcast in her small, lakeside town of Proofrock, Idaho. She has an absent mother and is forced to live with her abusive father, Jade changes her hair colour frequently. She is smart, resourceful, and a huge fan of horror Huge fan could be an understatement. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of the genre, particularly slasher films She seems to conflicted with the world more or less constantly,

After finishing high school there's nothing much in store for Jade. She works as a janitor for the local public school, and it seems she may be doing so well in the future. She doesn't view this as a bad thing and as long as she can get away from her father and his perverted friend.

Things change when mysterious events around town start mirroring the plot structure of her favourite genre, and Jade knows it's finally happening and strangely she's excited by the prospect. Her vast knowledge of horror films helps her predict how things are going to unfold

This was a fantastic book. There are so many references to slasher movies, characters, scenes, etc. I enjoyed every bit of it. This book was like an 80's horror movie and I was here for it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for sending a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I felt this book to be just okay. I will have to see what the sequel brings, but this one didn't thrill me like other works by this author have.

I might be biased on this one because I love slasher movies so much, as well as dark mysteries. So this novel had it all and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Fast-paced and widly entertaining! I also love the diversity of the characters and the fearless way the author explores the depravities that exist in humanity under the surface.

MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW deals in slashers: their history, their tropes, their ways of healing, their lore. But none of that would be interesting, useful, or so inextricably crucial to STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES’ story without Jade, our resident expert in the genre.

P

I have a solid sleep deficit because of this book. I could not put it down until my body started to pull hard shut-downs. But what is one to do with phrases like:

“So she won’t have to see Shooting Glasses standing there looking for her, she fetals down on her side in the bottom of the canoe, the gunwales to either side hiding her and her orange hair, her blue lips, her red left leg, her pitch-black heart.
And she hates it more than anything, but she’s sobbing now.
No, she can never be a final girl.
Final girls are good, they’re uncomplicated, they have these reserves of courage coiled up inside them, not layer after layer of shame, or guilt, or whatever this festering poison is.”

"But Jefferson Stoakes. None of us knew what to make of . . . what can you even think, when a kid you know turns up dead with a wasp nest not just crammed into his mouth, but kind of in PLACE of his mouth? And one detail Alison Chambers might still know from her dad was that Jefferson he was floating on his BACK. In the WATER. And yellow jackets, they'll avoid water. It gums their wings up or something. Or maybe it's like those baggies of water Dorothy puts up in the patio? You know Dorothy? Dot's? You too young for coffee yet? Give it a year. But we were all just stupid [bleeping] kids back then too -- no insult.”

“But now it's -- Amy Brockmeir, she was EATING, I piss you not. And then she looked up to me over the Trigo girl. What was left of her, I mean. Amy's hair was matted up, her nightgown all in rags. The lower part of her face was all black with -- well, with what she'd [serious bleep] been doing to the dam keeper's daughter.”

“The corner in the wall over by the copy machine is actually a giant fold in-process, and Jade, inside that white envelope, has checkboxes for eyes. The stool she’s stuck on has a sticky surface some greater tongue has already licked. Meg is a greasy black hair that’s fallen into the works to mess everything up, one Jade can’t quite pinch up or flick away.“

And perfectly nailed bits of humor, like:
“ “If anybody calls—” Hardy starts, “Route them through Dispatch,” Meg finishes. “And then tell you who they are, of course.”
“My Girl Friday,” Hardy says, sweeping past.
Jade has no idea what kind of pornographic pet name that might be, and doesn’t think she wants to know.”

You have no choice. You keep reading.

There is one last I want to share so badly, but it would ruin an enormous side plot and rob you of the emotional impact I was able to both enjoy and mourn. You’ll find it for yourself. You’ll know.

If you’re still on the fence, know MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW has inspired me to write an essay about what counts as a slasher in today’s society, what most people think it is and what I feel strongly able to argue it ACTUALLY is — thanks, Stephen, for educating me.

The mainstays of slashers are:
1. A person is transformed by significant, mainly childhood trauma that sets them up to take on a murderous future.
2. A trauma trigger (usually on a commemorative day or when seeing a person related to the original trauma) calls out to the traumatized person until they sink into a villain’s mindset, on a mission to take revenge.
3. The killings begin, often through the lens of the villain stalking and killing individuals. Each murder involves gore, and/or an unusual method of murder / weapon. As the slasher ramps up, there is less and less time between kills.
4. The survivors generally find these bodies themselves and the police are useless in assisting the survivors.
5. At the climax, there is a murderous rampage stopped by divine intervention, a hero’s battle/sacrifice, a final girl who has trauma of her own but regains personal power through vanquishing the killer, etc..
6. The reader experiences displacement, a psychiatric defense mechanism that transfers the reader’s feelings or reactions to the text, where it is easier to bear; recreation, a word first used to describe a concept of recovery, restoration, and growth; and catharsis, a purge of the negative and a cleansing / purifying process. In other words, by reading a slasher, readers take time to align their emotional baggage onto the text, taking time and space enough to allow for a recovery and growth process to take place, one that centralizes letting go of the harmful thoughts and feelings displaced onto the book and feeling purified as a result.

This being true, there is a controversial path where today’s slashers rest, waiting to become tomorrow’s classics. But wait on that for now. I’m still shopping it around.

Instead, I’ll tell you where the great slashers aren’t. They’re beyond the remakes, torture/gore p*orn, slasher comedy, and call-backs to the Golden Age, like Fear Street, It Follows, The Invisible Man, etc.

They wait in a Greek amphitheater for an audience ready to put its suffering down and be purified with the help of a Final Girl who’ll “turn around, scream into his face that she's so sick of this, that this is ENOUGH, that this is over. And then, in a move not matched in all the years since, not even by Sidney Prescott, not even by slow motion Alice when Pamela Voorhees won't stop coming at her, not even by Jamie Lee Curtis in that long dark night of Haddonfield, Constance climbs up her slasher's frontside and because she has no weapon, because she IS the weapon, she forces her hand into her slasher's mouth, down his throat, and then she reaches in deeper, and comes out with his life pulsing in her fist.

To put it in conclusion, sir, final girls are the vessel we keep all our hope in. Bad guys don't just die by themselves, I mean. Sometimes they need help in the form of a furie running at them, her mouth open in scream, her eyes white hot, her heart forever pure.”

As a child of the 70's and a teen in the 80's, I loved all the references to the slasher flicks I grew up with. I have seen most of the movies the main character Jade mentioned but I did pick up a few new titles to watch. Jade was a troubled teen, very much a loner, who was just trying to survive. Her history papers written for extra credit were placed between each chapter and were fun to read. The story line was just so unique, bloody, suspenseful, and fun. I only learned after finishing that this was the first of a planned trilogy. I'm just sad that the second will not be published until 2023! I highly recommend this book to horror fans looking for an interesting take on slasher movies.

I... actually hated this lmao the best part was that Jade's voice is very defined but is that really a good thing when the voice becomes grating? went from one of my most anticipated of 2021 to probably the worst of 2022 my life is a joke!

if you are not liking your time with the book: DNF it, i wish I did. You'll know by 25% whether or not you like it. The ending is not worth the struggle, trust me.

tw/cw: incest, pedophilia

the worst parts were just how often Jade meandered on and ON. Like the descriptions of the "final girl" when we meet her? I swear to god it went on for over 10 minutes straight. The scene where Jade sees the rich people testing the movie screen? Oh god it was literally half a chapter just describing the videos and what they were saying and NONE of it mattered.

That's another problem for me: the chapters are LONG AS HELL. Like I think this book might have one of the longest chapters I've ever seen at almost 2 hours long... how the fuck... I as a whole hate long chapters and it just made sections already dragged out by Jade as a narrator drag out even more.

And the ending just... ruined basically any goodwill I had saved up. The reveal that its a paranormal/supernatural slasher feels almost entirely out of left field given nothing that supernatural has happened prior to this. Along with the fact apparently there was ANOTHER slasher going along side it. And the fact all of the deaths feel way too dreamy so I have no idea if they actually happened, or if Jade imagined them. Because people die and then they come back later towards the end, so I'm just confused. And then a few people survive death when... they really shouldn't? And the actual ending lines? I have no idea how people are surprised this is getting a series when we have actually 0 closure on anything and I'm terrified to see how long the sequel drags out explaining what happened.

And the biggest issue: for a mystery/thriller/horror/whatever genre this could be called, it is WAY too slow. Like it takes until like halfway before we even really get started. And even then not until the last 25% does the pace actually SLIGHTLY go faster, but because of the way its written even the scenes that should feel fast paced feel so slow. I have no idea how you make a slow paced thriller/horror novel but after this, at least I know I am not a fan now.

A horror movie fanatic finds herself in a real life horror story. My Heart Is a Chainsaw is a unique read and is very much a slow burn. I found myself losing focus during certain parts and not fully invested in the story. I appreciate the way Stephen Graham Jones write with so much passion, I just don't think this one worked for me. I will however check out more by Stephen Graham Jones and look forward to what he writes next.

Did not enjoy. Too literary and elliptical. Wanted more scary stuff. But you might like it. Well written. Just not my cup of tea.

This book is a thrilling ode to slasher films and I loved every part of it. I liked The Only Good Indians a bit better, but I also think Stephen Graham Jones can do no wrong and will continue to read every novel they write.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

This book was definitely not intended for me. I think the audience for this book is very niche, but I think for those who end up liking this book, they will REALLY love it. But I think this book is a little polarizing. All the references to horror movies and books were completely lost on me, and I don't deny that it's partly my fault for not having all the knowledge I needed going into this book, It is exciting to think though that there will be people who really love this one,