My Heart Is a Chainsaw

By: Stephen Graham Jones

Narrated by: Cara Gee

Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel

Shirley Jackson meets Friday the 13th in the rollicking, bloody first novel of The Indian Lake trilogy by the master of modern horror Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter.

“Some girls just don’t know how to die…”

Shirley Jackson meets Friday the 13th in My Heart Is a Chainsaw, written by the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians Stephen Graham Jones, called “a literary master” by National Book Award winner Tananarive Due and “one of our most talented living writers” by Tommy Orange.

Alma Katsu calls My Heart Is a Chainsaw “a homage to slasher films that also manages to defy and transcend genre.” 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.

Promising But not great

Very slow to start, one killing scene then a long time before anything else really happens. Ending was disappointing

Top tier contemporary horror

I was very close to giving this one 5 stars but it didn't quite hang together at the end for me. Overall I think that Stephen Graham Jones is one of the finest horror writers working today. He has a strong voice and unique vision that sets him apart from his peers.

Chainsaw takes the slasher genre and basically turns it inside out to provide a fresh perspective on an older genre. The plotting is tight and the characters are unique and engaging. I was with Jade step for step even at her worst moments and felt a real emotional investment in her journey, as odd and twisted as it was. She's a deeply damaged and beautiful soul and I felt for her from the beginning.

As I mentioned, the one place this book fell short for me is the very end. This is a dark and harrowing journey and I felt hungry for a catharsis at the end that I don't feel ever arrived. It's not bad like it's horrible, it just isn't satisfying and I don't think it lives up to all of the incredible pages that preceeded it.

Despite this flaw, the rest of the book is strong enough to make it one of the best modern horror novels I have read in a long time.

Fascinating to listen

this is my second audio by this author. I really find his stories intriguing. you have to have an interesting mind to produce the types of stories he writes. I am not a slasher movie person so while I watch horror movies they are not the Freddy Kruger genre. so I am amazed by the intricacies that make up this story.

A love letter to horror movies and the comfort that they bring

I loved every second of this book. Cara Gee’s performance was spectacular. Jade is one of my favorite characters in recent memory. She’s given such gravity, such tenderness, and good humor. She carries her trauma like so many young women do, with the idiosyncratic mix of rage and aplomb that is so heartbreaking and endearing that you just wish you could jump into the story and tell her that she deserves love in her life. The story itself is clever and twisty and doesn’t quite stick the landing perfectly, but the wonderful character writing more than makes up for the faults. If you grew up with your own pain and sublimated it in the fantastic and horrifying, this book is for you.

Excellent story telling

Not gonna lie, the narrator takes a little getting used to, but stick with it; it soon becomes the voice of the main character who is complex and beautiful and flawed. This story is fun and deep in ways you don’t expect in this genre-totally engaging. Highly recommended (and make sure you listen to the author’s acknowledgment at the end for insight into the inspiration for his characters and setting).

Great performance

Great writing, too. There’s a lot of gore, described viscerally, but you probably could anticipate that.

A good if chaotic read

Really good deconstruction of the slasher genre, with a main character who goes from slightly intolerable to someone you’re rooting for at the end. Honestly the only thing that holds back a higher review is that the ending was extremely chaotic and I had to discuss it/read a few summaries after the fact to truly understand the events that were happening (not even an interpretation—the events themselves).

Not a bad listen.

I saw this story on IGN's list of top 10 horror novels, and then I saw it had gotten the Bram Stoker award. Seeing this may have given the story hype and given me high expectations. Expectations that the story didn't Eben come close to meeting. I felt like there was a lot of story left up in the air and I felt like cheated by the ending.

Great Story. Incredible Performance

Another great tale from SGJ, but Cara Gee's narration elevated it to one of my top 5 audible listens. She brought Jade to life in a way that I hadn't ever experienced with an audible book.

Pitch perfect

Easily the best audiobook version of a physical I’ve ever read, hope Reaper keeps it going in this direction.