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Book Review: My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

Gallery/Saga Press, 2021

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1982137632

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

Jade Daniels is part Blackfeet, but she’s 100% a fan of slasher movies. Living with her divorced, alcoholic father and barely scraping through high school while working as a janitor, where her drug-dealing boss is sexually harassing her, she spends most of her time watching slasher flicks, from the obscure to the popular. Without anyone to talk to about her love of these movies, she puts her energy and knowledge about them, and especially about final girls, in her extra-credit history papers. She is certain there’s a slasher ready to start on her own community, Proofrock, located in rural Idaho, if only she can identify the final girl and educate her. There are plenty of places that would make perfect locations and reasons for revenge, like Camp Blood, an abandoned summer camp on the lake that was closed after mysterious deaths, and Terra Nova, the new, exclusive development that’s being built on the opposite side of the lake on land that until recently was part of a national forest. There are even spooky urban legends.

Then Jade meets Letha Mondragon, daughter of the developer of Terra Nova. She thinks she’s met her final girl, and that finally the bloodshed is about to start. Jade just has to figure out where and why, and educate Letha on the ins and outs of surviving to be the final girl. Jade is about to discover, though, that life doesn’t always fit a pre-defined narrative.

My Heart is a Chainsaw is a love letter to the slasher genre and a validation for those who grew up loving it. If you aren’t a fan of slasher films, the references to even obscure slasher films will go over your head. The structure of the book means the narrative is frequently interrupted by Jade’s extra-credit papers on slasher films, which will help fill in the blanks for those who aren’t familiar with the genre, but while these build background knowledge, they do slow the narrative down. The characters aren’t especially likable and it’s sometimes even confusing to tell them apart. Jones doesn’t even name some of them, although when he does choose to develop a character he does it thoroughly.

As the reader gets further into the book the pace picks up and the body count rises. There are absolutely gruesome moments as well as plenty of gore. I do not have a strong stomach for these, so it’s a testament to Jones’ writing that I read this from beginning to end almost nonstop. Readers who love slasher films and have a high tolerance for violence and gore will find a lot to like in this bloody valentine.

Contains: violence, blood, gore, mass murder, sexual harassment, implied child sexual abuse, attempted suicide

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on November 25, 2021 by Kirsten, Reply

Book List: The Horror of Gentrification

When the topic of redevelopment comes up, affected residents need a seat at the table. If developers and city government aren’t interested in the needs and wants of the existing community, any “revitalizing” is for people who aren’t already there. Gentrification has had the effect of displacing people and institutions that have been in the same neighborhood for decades and replacing their homes with higher-end residences they can’t afford, expensive office space, or shopping and restaurants, with far-reaching consequences. It affects Black, brown, and indigenous people the most, but, even when it’s well-intended, it’s ALWAYS about making money.

When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole ( Bookshop.org )

After leaving her abusive husband, Sydney returns home to her mother’s Brooklyn brownstone, in an area which is rapidly gentrifying before her eyes, with her neighbors disappearing mysteriously at a rapid rate as well-to-do white couples move in. As Sydney investigates the history of Brooklyn, she realizes there is a cycle that connects to disturbing events of the present. When No One Was Watching gets into eugenics and medical experimentation and is grounded in some real historical events.

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin ( Bookshop.org )

In Jemisin’s book, the follow-up to her story “The City Born Great”, every major city has a human avatar. New York City, however, is so large that each borough needs one. Enter the Better Way Foundation, a front for a potential eldritch invasion of Lovecraftian proportions, though The Better Way Foundation, represented by Dr. White (I know…) This book has great LGBTQ+ representation, as well as indigenous, Black, brown, and Indian-American characters. Read our review here.

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

Gentrification is not limited to New York City. Black Water Sister takes place in Malaysia. Malaysian-American Jess was anxious about coming out of the closet. That’s small potatoes now that she is being haunted by her estranged, recently deceased grandmother, Ah Ma, who was a spirit medium for the goddess Black Water Sister and needs Jess to stop a developer from tearing down the vengeful goddess’ temple for a condo development. I asked my daughter how she would feel about being possessed by a bossy grandmother obsessed with zoning (her grandmother is, in fact, obsessed with zoning), and the expression on her face was one of horror. And that’s not even the scariest part. Vengeance is bloody business. For my part, I thought Ah Ma’s interactions with Jess were really entertaining. You wouldn’t want to get on that lady’s bad side. Side note: a lot of the dialogue is written in Manglish, but I found it easy to follow and understand.

Cover art for My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones ( Bookshop.org )

Gentrification occurs in rural and suburban communities as well as cities. In this love letter to the slasher movie, Jade Daniels, a troubled high-school of Blackfoot descent, uses her knowledge of horror movies and their tropes to navigate the town’s soon-to-be slasher story as wealthy gentrifiers begin building an exclusive enclave in her working class community. As you would expect from a slasher-inspired story, this has plenty of blood and gore.

Gentrification’s effects aren’t limited to the living, either. How many haunted house stories depend on one building or neighborhood being built over the homes and lives of others? Here’s a link to a ghostly meditation on the effects of live people on ghosts who were simply haunting their own village.

Posted on October 30, 2021 by Kirsten, Reply

Booklist: Final Girls

Wow, final girls have really had a great summer! July saw the release of The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix (reviewed here), and with the very end of August, I see Stephen Graham Jones’ newest book, My Heart Is A Chainsaw, is being released. I have not had the opportunity to read that yet, but I highly recommend The Final Girls Support Group (on a side note, my daughter was delighted that the characters were getting therapy).

The final girl is the survivor who takes down the monster in slasher movies. When fiction touches on her, it’s usually in a meta sort of way. Here are a couple of titles to try out if you are in the mood for a tale about final girls.

Final Girls by Riley Sager follows Quincy Carpenter. the lone survivor of a massacre at a cabin in the woods ten years earlier. Quincy, along with two other girls, Lisa and Sam, who survived slasher-style massacres, were labeled “Final Girls” by the media. She has done her best to move on, finding a boyfriend and starting a baking blog, but things start to fall apart when Lisa apparently dies from suicide, leaving a message on Quincy’s voicemail. Then Sam, who has been off the grid for years, appears at Quincy’s door and Quincy’s carefully constructed life starts to fall apart. The twist in this story was not what I expected it to be. Sager does a great job of deconstructing the final girl trope and this was a very difficult book to put down.

Final Girls by Mira Grant introduces Esther Hoffman, a journalist determined to debunk proprietary virtual reality technology that situates participants in horror movie scenarios to force them to face their worst fears. The scientist in charge, Dr. Jennifer Webb, challenges Esther to try it out with her. Events out of their control result in the two of them being trapped in the virtual reality scenario together, with disturbing results.

Final Girl Pocket Manga vol. 1 by David Hutchison drops four girls in a seemingly abandoned, isolated town, where they are stalked by its residents, and must escape their nightmare situation. Only one of them can be the final girl, though… Readers voted for their choice of final girl, and a bloody, full color climax reveals the survivor.

The Last Final Girl is also by Stephen Graham Jones. Taking a . chance with an experimental format, he has written it in a screenplay format, following the structure of a slasher movie. His love of the genre is clear, with many references to existing movies and “in-jokes”. The structure and the dependence of the audience’s understanding of the text on comprehension mean this will appeal to a very niche audience, but that audience will love it. Graham has also written an amazing final girl in his last novel, The Only Good Indians.

The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky starts us out with a final girl– Rachel Chavez, who was attacked in her home and survived. Rachel is a scholarship student at a fancy private school who starts out with no friends, until she discovers a secret club of horror lovers, The Mary Shelley Society, who create “fear tests”, horror scenarios that they try out on friends, classmates, and family. There’s no way this could end badly, right?