My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

My Rating: 5 stars!
Cover Rating: 2/10 unfortunately I really dislike this cover. I would not have wanted to read it because of the cover. I definitely picked this up based on the title and the author. This is way too plain and uninteresting for me.
Publisher: Saga Press
Publish Date: August 31st, 2021
Number of Pages: 405
Received: Thank you to Netgalley for the e-arc! All opinions are my own.
Purchase: Bookshop.org
Synopsis:
Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel
Shirley Jackson meets Friday the 13th in the rollicking, bloody first novel of The Indian Lake trilogy by the master of modern horror Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter.
“Some girls just don’t know how to die…”
Shirley Jackson meets Friday the 13th in My Heart Is a Chainsaw, written by the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians Stephen Graham Jones, called “a literary master” by National Book Award winner Tananarive Due and “one of our most talented living writers” by Tommy Orange.
Alma Katsu calls My Heart Is a Chainsaw “a homage to slasher films that also manages to defy and transcend genre.” On the surface is a story of murder in small-town America. But beneath is its beating heart: a biting critique of American colonialism, Indigenous displacement, and gentrification, and a heartbreaking portrait of a broken young girl who uses horror movies to cope with the horror of her own life.
Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with an abusive father, an absent mother, and an entire town that wants nothing to do with her. She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies…especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold.
Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges…a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body. My Heart Is a Chainsaw is her story, her homage to horror and revenge and triumph.
Opening Sentence: “On the battered paper map that’s carried the two of them across they’re not sure how many of the American states now, this is Proofrock, Idaho, and the dark body of water before them is Indian Lake, and it kind of goes forever out into the night.”
Musings:
Many have called this a love letter to the slasher genre and to me that is the very best description for it. Slashers are Jade’s hyper-fixation. She knows everything there is to know about slashers and she uses that knowledge in great detail to predict and try to understand the patterns of the current killer on the loose at Indian Lake.
If you love the slasher genre as a whole and adore horror this book will be one that you love. If you hate slashers well… I have no idea why you would pick this up. The absolute depth of love for slashers is incredible in this book. It could almost be educational.
Beyond that there is still this tense story of a killer killing at Indian Lake and Jade is doing everything she can to support who she feels is the final girl and to do everything she can to not become the killers next victim herself.
The intensity doesn’t fully pick up until a bit over halfway in the book. Once it does pick up though it is incredibly intense. Plus, it of course has some great kills as any slasher worth its salt would have.
I enjoyed this book so much and I especially loved its ending! For any horror movie lover this book is an absolute must read!
THANK YOU ALL FOR READING!
This month’s charity recommendation is https://www.aclu.org/ they fight for lgbt and abortion rights and do so much to change laws and educate the public on lgbt and abortion issues. They are also currently fighting for the right to birthright citizenship.
Check out my INSTAGRAM!
I would greatly appreciate any donations to help me afford Veterinary Technician school: Here is a link to my Venmo:https://venmo.com/u/Tiana-Wolfe-1













