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

Title: My Heart is a Chainsaw (Indian Like Trilogy # 1)
Author: Stephen Graham Jones
Genre: Horror
Published: 2021
 
Description: You won’t find a more hardcore eighties-slasher-film fan than Jade Daniels. And you won’t find a place less supportive of girls who wear torn T-shirts and too much eyeliner than Proofrock, nestled eight thousand feet up a mountain in Idaho, alongside Indian Lake, home to both Camp Blood – site of a massacre fifty years ago -  and, as of this summer, Terra Nova, a second-home celebrity Camelot being carved out of a national forest.
 
That’s not the only thing that’s getting carved up, though – this Jade knows, is the start of a slasher. But what kind? Who’s wearing the mask? Jade’s got an encyclopedia recall of every horror movie on the shelf, but… will that help her survive? Can she get a final girl trained enough to stop all this from happening. Does she even want to?
 
Isn’t a slasher exactly what her hometown deserves?
 
Review: Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with a violent father and an absent mother. And her town wants to have nothing to do with her. She lives in her own world, a world where her safe space is a little unconventional: horror films, preferably the slasher. And Jade tells the quirky history of Proofrock like it is such a film. But when actual bloodshed starts happening in the waters of Indian Lake, Jade uses her knowledge of the genre to unfold how the plot will develop.
 
Stephen Graham Jones is a fantastic writer, no denying there. It’s very clear he is a horror fan and an avid watcher of the slasher genre. Aside from the story he’s telling with Jade as the main character, we also get some chapters that are called “Slasher 101”, which is basically Jade’s know-how on the slasher film. I especially loved these chapters. As a film fan myself I could appreciate reading about a fellow nerd and the book itself was filled with pop culture references.
 
Jade is not particularly a very likeable person. There is a reason that most people in Proofrock try to avoid her or want nothing to do with her. But somehow Jones managed to write her in such a way that you are on her side. I believe I could have endless conversations with Jade.
 
This book is a very slow burn, the pacing is very slow. And as a slower reader, I hated this. If I wasn’t so much into the thematic of the book, I would have DNF’ed it, for sure. But I still wanted to keep reading, never had the urge to DNF. It’s slow because, at first, I had to adjust to the writing style. And the plot developed really slowly too. One thing I always hate about books is long chapters. That makes a book slow sometimes too. Towards the end, it becomes a bit faster and those final two chapters were so action packed. I really enjoyed the ending.
 
I knew that “My Heart is a Chainsaw” would be somewhere in the middle for me even before starting it. I will continue reading Stephen Graham Jones’ novels, because his writing is so interesting. And I love his love for horror films. But “My Heart is a Chainsaw” didn’t hit me the way it should’ve.
 
Rating: 3/ 5