When I think of Indigenous horror, my thoughts turn to the original 1982 version of Poltergeist. That’s a movie that warns about the dangers of building your home on top of a Native American graveyard. I couldn’t help but think of Poltergeist as I read Indigenous author Stephen Graham Jones’ new novel, My Heart Is a Chainsaw. For one, it has an Indigenous protagonist, and, in its way, it is a book about what happens when you mess with the spirits of those among whom have lived on this land long before the First Contact (but I hope I’m not saying too much here). However, what My Heart Is a Chainsaw is concerned with is that subgenre of horror films known as the slasher flick. The book is one big sopping love letter to all of the Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Kruegers, and Ghostfaces that populate the big screen. In fact, this book has so many blink-and-you’ll-miss-them references to slasher movies both well-known and obscure that spotting them all is part of the fun. However, slasher films are not known for their quality, and, sadly, despite some promise, My Heart Is a Chainsaw is a book that runs only on a quarter of a tank of gas.

The book — like many titles in this pandemic era — is set in the recent past of the year 2015 in the idyllic town of Proofrock, Idaho. Jade Daniels is a half-Indian (the book doesn’t cop to “political correctness” much, despite its authorship), 17-year-old girl who is infatuated with slasher movies, so much so that she writes essays about them for extra credit so she can pass her history class to graduate from high school. (These essays are interspersed between proper chapters of the read.) Proofrock is being overrun by wealthy outsiders who have brought yachts and fancy homes to the side of the lake (called Indian Lake, natch) directly opposite the town, a new quasi-gated community that has been dubbed “Terra Nova” (which, of course, means “New World”). This new housing development encroaches on a National Forrest, meaning that conservation and nature preservation are being flattened in the pursuit of building mansions for the enjoyment of these rich out-of-towners. Anyhow, one day, some young tourists from the Netherlands wind up dead in the lake, and Jade is convinced that a horror movie cycle is starting up in her town as a result. She even has a “final girl” (a virginal girl who winds up killing the killer in slashers) pegged: Letha Mondragon, who happens to live on that “other” side of the lake. Can she coach Letha into rising into the role of glory that she was meant to be so that the horrors of what’s happening around Indian Lake can be stopped?

To say a few good words about the book, Jade Daniels is an appealing protagonist, and Graham Jones writes a convincing female character for much of the book’s reading time. Seeing the world of the slasher movie through an Indigenous lens is fascinating, and Jade is a compelling outsider who is at odds with everybody in town. And seeing how the novel plays out against slasher tropes — the police are incompetent, for starters — is deeply satisfying. In some ways, My Heart Is a Chainsaw is a revisionist horror novel that has fun with the genre’s conventions in the same way the Scream franchise did in the movies.

However, that’s where one’s enjoyment of the read might end. For one thing, My Heart Is a Chainsaw is overlong. It takes a long time for the body count to start piling up, which is antithetical to slasher movies, and when it does, the novel starts to fizzle out rather than fire on all cylinders. This is because, for as much as the author is invested in slashers, he doesn’t paint a convincing portrait of the town or most of its supporting characters. It’s really hard for those pictures to form inside your head of the action that’s supposed to be going on when it turns out that most of the drama is internal — this is Jade’s story, and the book is really about what turned her into the slasher-loving misfit that she is. There’s an element of Jade’s life that is noticed by other characters, and Graham Jones spends way too much time here in the midsection of the novel for a reveal that comes in the climax that you can pretty much see coming a mile away.

The other main issue is that Jade isn’t the real hero of the story (that would be, perhaps, Letha Mondragon). We see the action through Jade’s point-of-view as a more passive character, which doesn’t make for a very exciting book. This means we get pages and pages of Jade tromping through the woods, spying on people as they, say, discover bodies, which is about as riveting as watching paint dry. And for someone who is part Randy Meeks from Scream and part Crazy Ralph from Friday the 13th, Jade doesn’t do much in the way of convincing Letha of her true destiny — Jade simply drops off a horror movie Letha should watch as prep at her home, but she insinuates things to Letha rather than spell it all out for her. The latter would have made for a much more thrilling narrative. After all, the convincing side-kick could have been a lot more fun than the treatment it gets here. Finally, Jade does things without explanation — such as, when things start really cooking in terms of dead people popping out of the woodwork, she cuts off all of her hair a la Tommy Jarvis from Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. There is no explanation for why she does this, other than — minor spoiler here — it saves her goose from being cooked later on.

My Heart Is a Chainsaw then is a squandered opportunity. It aims to be of a higher quality than the slasher genre than it is based on, but the novel is perhaps so enamoured by the concept of slashers to begin with that it doesn’t quite rise above. The novel is written in long, run-on sentences — in an attempt to parlay how an outsider teenaged girl might talk and think — and is sometimes extremely hard to read. This is a determent to the book because, again, Graham Jones was trying to elevate the slasher into something of more discernible quality. The attempt is appreciated — surely, there are good slashers out there such as the original Halloween and the first Scream movie (the book even makes the case for Jaws being a slasher flick) that make the genre worthy of being celebrated. Alas, the writing isn’t quite there. This is unfortunate because Graham Jones relays in his acknowledgments at the novel’s end that he spent 10 years and multiple attempts to get the story right. I’d hate to see those earlier drafts. In the end, My Heart Is a Chainsaw doesn’t rev as it should. Certainly, the research was there for an interesting read and, if you’re a horror buff, this could be a lot of fun with the pop culture references and essays about slashers that pepper the book. My heart, alas, just wasn’t into this one due to the slipshod writing that cuts like a dull chainsaw blade. Unless you want a read a book for its winks and nods, you should probably take a pass on this.

Stephen Graham Jones' newest is a true tribute to slasher movies, while also following the slasher arc. Almost 18 year old Jade finds herself stuck in a small town, where everyone knows each other a bit too well and nothing much happens. Deaths start to occur but they are chalked up to bear attacks. However, Jade's extensive knowledge of slashers leads her to believe that a massacre is about to occur, a la every 80's slasher flick.
I'm stuck on this review - I adore Jones' writing style, the layers to his stories, and his characters. With this particular book, there was a very lengthy slow portion, which I believe was to symbolize the slowness and sometimes tedium of Jade's life. However, I could have done without it. And while the homage to slashers and amount of information about them was impressive, it also became tedious.
A solid 3 stars for me.
Thank you to Gallery/ Saga Press and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for honest review.

I really struggled to read this book. I read the first chapter and thought that it was going to be right up my alley. It somehow got a little blurry from there. The next 60-70% of the story was very wordy and long. I found myself skimming over pages and not able to take in all the details. The last bit of the book was more interesting. I feel like that is where the action started and the story became more interesting but I struggled to get to that point. I read a lot of great reviews of this book and I believe it is a great book for some, it just wasn't right for me.

I DNF’d My Heart is a Chainsaw at 30% because it was painfully slow and boring. The main character, Jade, was a difficult character to connect with because her thoughts and actions were so obsessive with slasher films it got tedious quickly. At times it felt like I was reading a wikipedia page.

I encourage readers to seek out reviews of this book from Indigenous authors, as I cannot accurately speak to the same nuances of this book that they would understand.

As someone who loved The Only Good Indians and Night of the Mannequins, but had really only seen 4 or 5 slasher movies, I was unsure of what I would think about this book. I am, however, glad to say that although I'm slightly confused, I still really enjoyed it. Honestly, I think one of the great things about this book is that upon reread, you will still discover something new--I know that I am looking forward to listening to the audiobook when it comes out. As always with Jones' work, the writing was stunning and the plot was a gloriously gore-y homage to classic slasher movies. While some might say that this was oddly paced, it followed the slasher formula to "t", while still bringing something new to the genre. This book also had some excellent and nuanced commentary on important social issues, including colonialism and environmentalism. Can't wait to read what he writes next (as well as get to some more of his backlist)!

MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW follows Jade, a seventeen year old on the verge of graduation. She’s lived a pretty rough life and to cope, she immersed herself into an obsession with slasher movies hoping that one day a real-life slasher would manifest in her town. Well, that day has arrived. Someone is killing people in the sleepy town of Proofrock, Idaho and it’s up to Jade to see it through and find the final girl who will be left standing when all is said and done.

I found MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW to be a difficult read at times. While the story starts off strong, it takes some time for things to get going as the author lays the ground work for Jade and the novel’s wide cast of characters. The bulk of the novel focuses on Jade’s obsession as she guides the reader through the history and importance of the horror subgenre, while at the same timenoticing trends in her real life that suggest a maniac is on the loose.

Horror aficionados will likely enjoy the deep cuts in Jade’s knowledge, but to me, it became overly repetitive. I was eager for the blood to start spilling. I found myself growing numb to the constant mentions of the virtues of 80s slasher cinema and the 70s films that paved the way. While the copies of Jade’s essays handed in to her history teacher helped to grow the character, I felt there were too many of them and I began to tire of reading them. Jones really wants the reader in Jade’s head and I felt like I was locked in there at times looking for a way out.

All that said, once the action kicks into full gear around the 70% mark, the book becomes hard to put down. Stephen Graham Jones has a visceral style that is akin to gawking at a car crash – you just can’t look away. Much of the violence here is memorable to say the least and will stick with me for some time to come.

While I generally liked MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW, it’s not the best Stephen Graham Jones book I’ve ever read (THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS holds that title), but it’s definitely one I can see selling well come the spooky season this fall. I think there could be a way to shave off nearly 100 pages and make this story tighter, but that’s just me.

This is a fantastic horror novel that infuses Native American culture into the traditionally white slasher narrative. 

This book is basically a love letter to the slasher genre. The main character is obsessed with the subgenre, constantly referencing the killers and final girls of the most iconic. The movie references made the story very fun and entertaining. I'll admit that I still need to watch a lot of those slasher movies and unfortunately I did get spoiled a few times. I really enjoyed the Slasher 101 essays included between the chapters, which added a light and humorous touch to the novel.

Fans of Only The Good Indians will be very happy with this follow up novel. Once again, Stephen Graham Jones manages to weave  Native American culture into a horror narrative in a fresh and innovative way. Compared to the previous novel, I found this one more accessible with a more simple plot. I found this one less scary, but more fun with a lighter tone.

My main criticism is that I found the narrative to be a bit disjointed and rather slow. The middle section just felt unnecessarily long and I personally would have preferred a tighter story. 

Regardless, I really enjoyed this one. I would highly recommend this novel to just about any horror fans, particularly movie buffs who will appreciate the references even more than I did.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

If you enjoy slashers or books about final girls or your horror mixed with hard-cry emotion but with a little humor, this book… this book is what you have always been looking for. Jade is such a compelling character, though she may take a little warming up to in the onset. While there are secondary characters that play significant roles throughout the novel, she is the absolutely focal point and deservedly so.

Feels like 2021 is the year of the final girl and I am HERE FOR IT!

Thank you to NetGalley for the arc of this great book!

This book has been called "a love letter to the slasher genre" and truer words have never been spoken. This isn't Slasher 101, this is advanced fucking Slasher Calculus with a Final Girl major. Sometimes it's too much but when you get to know more about Jade, our unlikable, outcast heroine...you get it.

Very slow at parts, too fast at others and a stream of consciousness narrative that is all over the place. I only wish that some of the chapters were shorter. There was a lot of "put down, pick back up later" for that reason.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Canada for providing a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

ade, a slasher film fanatic and *almost* high school graduate is convinced her little lake town is Idaho has now become what she’s always dream, a real live slasher film. Bodies are found shortly after construction begins across the lake, but they’re told they were bear attacks.

I almost didn’t finish this book a number of times.
Which is sad because by the synopsis I REALLY wanted to like this book. However nothing really …. Happens. Well at least until the last couple chapters and even then the build up was not worth it to me.

I will give kudos because of the horror movie knowledge and some interesting backstory of the local lore. Other than the essay notes at the end of the unnecessarily long chapters I found myself lost more times than I can count.

Overall, if you’re already a of the authors work then you will enjoy this as it is similar in style to the others. But this just wasn’t for me.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing this ARC.

Stephen Graham Jones is quickly becoming one of my favourite horror writers. My Heart Is a Chainsaw, along with his previous work The Only Good Indians.

I liked how this was basically a literary version of the first Scream movie - very self aware, but with enough twists to keep it engaging.

I feel like the "essays" in the middle may not be needed - I didn't feel like they added much for me.

This is possibly even better than The Only Good Indians . Jade is great, the setting is great and so are her "history" papers about slasher movies, and the ending is great. Heck, I even teared up reading the Acknowledgements (which had a great story about how this book came to be). The story is a lot like a slasher movie seen from just off screen, and then there are twists and meta-commentary and history and revenge. Might even make a good TV series.

Like many reviewers, I was introduced to Stephen Graham Jones through his masterpiece, The Only Good Indians. His newest work doesn't reach that level of excellence, but it is still a damn good book. As the title implies, this is a love-letter to the slasher film genre, and his protagonist, Jade Daniels, is familiar with all of the tropes, conveniences, leaps of logic, narrative steps, and meta-narrative sidesteps found therein. As she convinces herself that her town is headed toward a Grand Guignol during its annual lakeside Fourth of July celebration, Jade reaches out to her teacher, sheriff, and classmate initially to investigate but eventually to fulfill her prophesy of slaughter.

The story is not bereft of the currents that flowed through The Only Good Indians. Class antagonism serves as a narrative catalyst, pitting the townspeople on one side of the lake against the "founders" of a luxury community on the other side. Humankind's encroachment on nature contributes to pivotal moments of the story and partly explicates the townspeople's doom. Then the conflict between the colonizers and the colonized is personified in Jade, herself half-Indian, embraced by neither her Indigenous father nor her estranged non-Indigenous mother. These threads tie seamlessly into the earlier work, but become a bit frayed as we near Chainsaw's gory conclusion.

Jones excels here at world-building, although it is a world contained to a rural Idaho town, but one with a deep mythology. His characters are hardly stereotypical slasher figures, even if Jade attempts to convince herself and those around her otherwise. I enjoyed Jones/Jade's essays that were interspersed in the book's chapters, even if the vocabulary was a couple of degrees beyond a high school or college education, but that's a very small quibble here.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this pre-publication.

My favourite book of the year so far! Five glorious, gory stars.

Jade lives and breathes slasher movies. Nearly every thought she has is consumed with them.

Jade’s coping mechanism is watching and analyzing these slasher movies in order to manage the pain she feels living with her abusive father and absent mother. Jade is half-indigenous and feels like she doesn’t fit in anywhere.

When a dead tourists body shows up in Indian Lake Jade thinks this is the beginning of a slasher movie come to life, and well, she’s not wrong. She uses her encyclopedic knowledge of slasher flicks to predict how it will turn out.

Jade’s brain is a confusing place to be. There are times when she’s not sure if she’s awake or dreaming, and as the reader, it sometimes felt like that as well.

Have you seen those Tiktok videos of a voiceover saying “do you ever look at someone and wonder what is going on inside their head?” And it plays that electronic music? And the video usually shows someone behaving kind of strangely? Jade’s headspace reminds me of that. I love her, but she is quite the character with an expansive imagination.

Needless to say, I loved this book! The more I think about it, the more I am obsessed with it. Not only does this book have gore, but it also delves into deeper discussions. Like what it means to be indigenous in an environment that doesn’t care, what it means to be forgotten. How neocolonialism affects indigenous communities today.

As other reviewers have already said, this book is a bit slow in the beginning and requires concentration, but is a wild ride in the last quarter, or so. In my opinion, the payoff is huge. I need to pre-order a physical copy of this stat.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and author for a digital ARC of this book!

This was a fun novel to read. The main character is a teenager named Jade and she is an expert on all things slasher. You will really enjoy reading this if you too are a horror movie fan and nostalgic for all those b slasher bloodathons like Halloween, Nightmare on Elmstreet and Sleepaway campesque movies. It was a bit disjointed and a bit gory but right on point in slasher movie fashion. Jade was refreshingly angsty and a total bad ass..


Thank you netgalley for this fun arc

I wish to thank NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for this challenging and gory tribute to horror/slasher movies. The book is told in the 3rd person and centres around a 17-year-old girl named Jade. We get to know this well-written character well, and we follow the narrative through her thoughts and actions. We are immersed in Jade's mind, which I found an uncomfortable place to be. There tended to be a lot of rambling, speculation, and suspicion on her part.

The book was slow-paced until about the 70% mark. It required a lot of concentration. There were many names of people from both sides of the Lake and characters' names from slasher movies. Readers who are fans of horror stories from books or films should enjoy this book, but it is not for everyone. There are many bloodletting/ gruesome scenes in the story, as described by Jade in relating details from her encyclopedic knowledge of slasher movies.

Jade is half-Indian and lives with her drunken father. Her mother is long departed from the home. Jade views her life and the world through what she has learned from old slasher movies. Her conversation is related to the horror movies she has watched. Her appearance and behaviour have made her an outcast. She lives on the poor side of the Lake in the settlement of Proofrock. The homes and yards are an eye-sore. Now gentrification is coming to the opposite side of the Lake. Wealthy people are having imposing, luxurious mansions built. Their yachts are putting the rickety canoes and rowboats to shame.

She is in her final year of High School, but a history assignment is holding her back. Her essays describe the history of the town through a horror lens while inserting details about slasher movies. I admit to being a fan of many of these movies and found them scary but ridiculous in an enjoyable way. I remember many of the mad slashers named by Jade: Michael, Jason, and Freddy. She also explains in a school essay the reason she regards Jaws as a slasher movie. She also mentions Norman Bates from Psycho. Almost forgotten until later is Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I felt to engage in Jade's narrative fully, and it would help share her encyclopedic memory of the names of some of the Final Girls.

A new girl, Letha, enrolls in school from the wealthy side of the Lake. Jade regards her as beautiful, pure, and perfect, the embodiment of a Final Girl. There have been 4 known recent deaths from various causes. Jade is excited as she strongly believes that this is the prelude to a slasher coming to kill during the July 4 celebrations. She is thrilled that she may be living through a real-life slasher movie in her own town. Because she knows she lacks the traits to be a Final Girl, she feels it is her role to mentor Letha to be the Final Girl during and after the horrifying events that are approaching. Sometimes, Jade is concerned that she may be paranoid due to her obsession.

The local sheriff, Hardy, is protective of her. Her history teacher, Hardy, and Letha believe her oddness results from childhood abuse and trauma. Until about the 3/4 point, I found the story slow and tedious, but then all Hell broke loose. It seemed that every trope and cliche from horror films would be unleashed, along with death, destruction, fire and flood, and the supernatural.
To quote a blurb from the 1970s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, "Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them?"

If you love horror, I recommend you give this a try!