Amazon.ca:Customer reviews: My Heart Is a Chainsaw (The Indian Lake Trilogy Book 1)

Top positive review

Beware the Slasher!

Reviewed in Canada on October 21, 2021

This is a must read for lovers of slasher flicks and horror in general. Loved all the twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the end.

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Shelley

I Found it Slow

Reviewed in Canada on August 31, 2021

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.

5 people found this helpful

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From Canada

Joan Macleod

Beware the Slasher!

Reviewed in Canada on October 21, 2021

Verified Purchase

This is a must read for lovers of slasher flicks and horror in general. Loved all the twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the end.

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Shelley

I Found it Slow

Reviewed in Canada on August 31, 2021

5 people found this helpful

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A tribute to slasher and horror films

Reviewed in Canada on August 31, 2021

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!

2 people found this helpful

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brooklynnnnereads

It's Not You, It's Me

Reviewed in Canada on November 29, 2021

I'm going to be downright real about this one and harshly honest about myself.....this book is out of my league. I don't think I even fully understood the majority of this novel and for that, that's on me. This book is one to certainly make you question your own intelligence.

Aside from my own personal intellectual doubts, this was overall just not my kind of read. I loved the horror movie references but the story was too abstract for my reading taste. I couldn't tell what was 'real' or what the main character of Jade could be imagining.

Even after finishing this book, I'm left feeling pretty confused about what I read. This book is definitely a case of "it's not you, it's me".

One person found this helpful

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suekitty13

Gory and bleak but also exciting and suspenseful

Reviewed in Canada on December 20, 2021

I’ve always been a horror movie fan. When I was young I remember watching all the classic slasher movies-Nightmare on Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th. As I’ve gotten older my love of horror has evolved into more of a psychological or Gothic horror and less into the slashers. I haven’t even seen any of the Saw movies, but my introduction to horror was definitely those gory slashers so they hold a place in my nostalgic heart.

The story is told from Jade’s point of view and we spend the entire time in her head. She obviously had suffered some serious trauma and her home life was truly terrible causing her to retreat into slasher movies as a defense mechanism. Ascribing order to these films allowed her to compensate for the complete lack of order in her own life. According to Jade, and all of her essays for English class, slashers all follow certain rules and shared elements which make them generally predictable. Jade desperately needs logic and predictability in her own life and she wishes constantly for a real life slasher in her town. When unusual deaths start happening she is overjoyed that the “movie” has begun and she tries to find the familiar patterns of a slasher movie in real life events. Is there really a slasher in Proofrock or is Jade just so desperate for a predictable pattern that she sees patterns that aren’t really there? I’m not going to ruin it for you so you’ll have to read and find out.

There were many things to love about this book and the creepy opening scene at the lake immediately got my attention. After the amazing prologue we see the rest of the story through Jade’s eyes and we are in her head throughout. I will say that I didn’t always love being stuck in her brain. She thinks of noting except slasher movies and the constant death and gore. She is a true obsessive and I can’t say that I would want to hang out with her in real life but when the bodies start dropping I would absolutely want her by my side.

While the story is often gory, bleak and disturbing it is also is exciting and suspenseful, especially near the end where the action moves at breakneck speed, just like a horror movie. People are dying right and left and Jade is right in the middle taking her one chance to be the hero. She is the ultimate underdog and it is kind of enjoyable to see her fulfill her dream, even if it means mass murder. This isn’t an easy story and Jade isn’t an easy heroine but when it comes together at the end it is satisfying.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada, Gallery / Saga Press for providing an Electronic Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley for review.

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Greg at 2 Book Lovers Reviews

*4.5 Stars - Be careful what you wish for.

Reviewed in Canada on August 31, 2021

My Heart is a Chainsaw comes from the be careful what you wish for file.

First and foremost, this story is an homage to the slasher film genre. And Jade, our protagonist, is a walking, talking slasher encyclopedia. Jones puts on full display his knowledge of the genre through Jade, spelling out the pattern à-la Scream, highlighting the glorious staples of the genre and informing his audience of the lesser-known hidden gems. However, he puts a fantastic twist on one of the most cardinal elements of the slasher: the final girl.

Secondly, Jones really makes us take a long hard look at ourselves, the things we do, say, and think about people who look different from us. The things that have happened over the generations and the impact those events still have today. My Heart is a Chainsaw is a challenge to do better.

My only complaint was Jade’s overcharged imagination. Sometimes it felt a little difficult to tell reality from Jade’s superimposed unreality; perhaps this was what Jones was going for, it just left me feeling a bit distracted from time to time.

Jones did all of this within a supercharged horror story. Filled with captivating characters and one of the best action-filled climaxes that I’ve read in years, every element helped to build the story right to the bloody end!

*I received a copy of the book from the publisher (via NetGalley).

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Linda Carey

A love letter to slasher movies.

Reviewed in Canada on September 5, 2021

I enjoyed this horror story. It was a love letter to slasher movies. The prologue nearly knocked me off my chair. Then, I was disappointed with the slow burn to the excitement which started about three quarters of the way in. After that, the horror that we expect from slasher movies kicked in with the ending I was not expecting. If you enjoy horror books, you will love My Heart is a Chainsaw. I received a free copy of this book and I am voluntarily leaving my review.

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Konekokimi

Intense, Dark Thriller

Reviewed in Canada on September 23, 2021

MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW is full of frights! It is also multi-layered, thought-provoking and intense. Protagonist Jade is an immensely interesting character. She has an obsession with horror films and immerses herself in the genre to escape from the reality of her life, but there is so much more to her than that. Stephen Graham Jones is an excellent storyteller and creates a dark, thrilling read! Highly recommended to fans of scary novels and slasher movies.

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D Speed

A suspenseful, mournful thriller

Reviewed in Canada on September 7, 2021

As I’m not overly familiar with horror movies, I not only appreciated Jade’s “essays”, but throughly enjoyed them as well. Stephen Graham Jones has expertly woven together the many layers within this book - creating a suspenseful, mournful thriller with a main character to root for. Thank you NetGalley for my copy. My comments and opinions are my own.

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Veronica Sparrow

Homage to slasher genre

Reviewed in Canada on September 18, 2021

The book was a bit hard to get into at first but it did pick up. It's basically a homage to the slasher genre. The main character is a girl named Jade and I found the complexity of her character fascinating. I find Stephen Graham Jones novels quirky, unique and very deftly written.

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5 star		47%
4 star		26%
3 star		15%
2 star		8%
1 star		4%

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My Heart Is a Chainsaw (The Indian Lake Trilogy Book 1)

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