Review: My Heart Is a Chainsaw

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 stars 

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. 

Some things you just don't touch. 

If you ever wanted Randy from Scream to be the star of the show, My Heart is a Chainsaw would be the story for you. Told from first person pov and literary past tense, Jennifer Daniels is a seventeen year old high school senior who uses her love of slasher films to write Slasher 101 extra credit papers to help her pass history class. Her history teacher, Mr. Holmes, sighing accepts them as she ties in the town's, Proofrock, ID, gory history. The town has a Camp Blood, a sleepaway camp where children were murdered, a past fire that burned people, and Indian Lake, where little girl Stacey Graves was murdered, a preacher drowned, and more recently, the sheriff's daughter was killed. The lake is seeing more action as rich developers are building luxury homes across the lake from Proofrock, bringing in new people (redherrings) and stirring up old and present issues. 

No, Jade will never be any kind of final girl, she knows, and has known for years. 

I loved how the story started out, two Dutch teens touring America decide to take a canoe out in the lake and skinny dip. It brought in that sense of glee, as all horror fans know where this is going and while we get the dread and murder, the question of why and how is left unanswered as the story does that shift from dark to light, a town that has no idea what is coming. Except we have our Randy, or Jennifer who has tried to reinvent herself as Jade, so she can be the girl that knows all about slashers and not known as something else. When she learns about the death of someone in the lake (the Dutch boy's body is found), she's gung-ho that a slasher has come to her town, especially since one of the rich girls from across the lake has Final Girl written all over her. 

Everybody has a function, everybody in a slasher cycle has a role— isn’t that a line from the Bible, even? 

A problem I have with newer slashers is that they take too long to get to the gory fun, and this story falls into that. The ramblings of Jade about how everything she is seeing and in her life that she ties, compares, and sees alluding to slasher movies takes up way too much time. I love slashers, so I enjoyed the name dropping of so many (unless I missed it, sad Chopping Mall didn't make the cut but grinned at Thankskilling) but after the numerous Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street references, even I was ready for the story move on; I can see many fighting some boredom in the beginning middle. Getting to know Jade and her life, is intricate to the end and following her allows readers to get to know the fodder, excuse me, townspeople but it all takes too much time. 

Maybe, since the slasher’s been going for nearly four decades, the only way to still surprise is by breaking its rules. 

The last 65% is where the show really gets going and while there were some nicely gory scenes, readers still don't get to “see” the slashing as redherrings are still playing a part and Jade doesn't come in until the killings are done. Instead of enjoying the danger, thrills, and fighting to stay alive, the tone was still cloaked in a bewildering and confused mist as Jane and the reader still don't know what is happening. The last 20% gave the reveals and frankly, it was a mess of too many threads coming from every direction. Jade's own trauma comes to the forefront in the middle of the slayings and while it's supposed to be this big emotional moment, it didn't feel like it had created space in the story for me as the reader to really get there. 

Some girls just don’t know how to die. 

If I didn't know that this was being turned into a trilogy, I would be annoyed with the ending and probably lower the rating. We get the killing reveals but then Jade has another tie-in to her emotional trauma that, again, felt out of place and not hitting right. As it is, knowing Jade's story continues, I'm curious about the sequel and how Jade will prevail against a video taken of her that shows the facts but not the truth, who some surprise survivors could be, and if she'll have another battle with the Lake Witch. If some of the repeated Nightmare on Elm Street and the like, Final Girl talk had been condensed, and some plot threads cut to strengthen others, I think the shorter page count would have served this story better. As it was, I did enjoyed the slasher talk, some unexpected elements, and Jade's fight for survival, physically and emotionally.

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