My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
☆☆
.ePUB, 376 pages
Expected Publication: August 31st 2021
By Gallery Books / Saga Press
About the Book:
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.
My Review:
This book was really slow. It was well written and very creative but I found it to be lacking in the excitement department. Fans of horror and slasher movies might like this a tad more. I wasn't impressed with the ending either. The main character, Jade, is a teenager and we suffer through all her thoughts and anguish. Some of it read like a young adult novel. Four hundred pages of this was just too much for this reader to enjoy it. I can see there being a place for this on some people's bookshelves but it wasn't for me.
Thank you NetGalley, Stephen Graham Jones and Gallery Books / Saga Press for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an impartial review; all opinions are my own.
#NetGalley
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