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

My first Stephen Graham Jones.

And I loved it!

Okay, let's get down to the nitty-gritty. I think I loved it most because both the author and the MC were as knowledgeable about the whole glorious movie horror mythos as I am. It gave me the whole self-aware vibe of Scream AND let me revel in my own bloody juices. The way any self-professed slasher would be.

Don't look at me that way. YOU know what I'm saying. You know what I mean... you glorious sicko.


So what happens when you know all the moral topes, you know the setups and the meaty points of every serial murderer story, and you hate your community enough to WANT to see it suffer, and yet you still profess to be the Final Girl and/or the side-character that barely squeaks away, but there is an actual murderer getting prepared to go hog-wild on your peers and the sad sacks of adults?

Well, you bide your time, of course. You investigate. You don't let anyone know, but you still try to prepare your closest friends for the gorefest to come, all the while wanting to be in the real-life horrorfest, yourself?


The novel walks a very fine line of self-knowledge and rip-roaring classic horror fun.

It worked especially well for me because I AM a huge fan of all the classics, so the nostalgia was spot-on. How good is it for everyone else? No idea, but the underlying story was great, the characters were delightful and the plot was never boring. But then, I love good meta, too, so the novel plied me well.


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