Week 42

As we plunge further into October, I plunge further into various cardigans and sweaters, and tentatively dip my toes into some spooky stories. Maybe, if the library complies with my requests.

#65) MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW by Stephen Graham Jones

Hey, first spooky book of the season!

I have some mixed feelings about this book, to be honest, so let’s start with the good and then get to the more complicated.

First of all, I like the concept of this book really well: extremely horror-savvy character ends up in a horror story. It’s fun, it’s meta, and I was really into that. Furthermore, I really love the main character, Jade. She gets to be a lot of things - snarky, tortured, angry - that female characters aren’t always allowed to be, and though she wasn’t always relatable, I found myself really rooting for her. I was surprised by how many characters I cared about by the end of the book, really.

I also just really enjoy Stephen Graham Jones’ writing style. He has an excellent way with words, and especially with descriptions of horrifying things. He draws you into the story and the carnage in a way that really holds you, despite how terrifying or otherwise gory and horribly it is.

Despite that, though, I did find that this book dragged a bit through the middle. In true Jaws fashion, this book pulls its punches until the end, and while I would say that the payoff is pretty good, I still could have done with a couple more spooks throughout.

Relatedly, I ended up feeling a little dissatisfied with the ending. Not so much the “payoff”, ie the resolution to the mystery and the final horror-movie carnage (though I have some mixed feelings about the mystery), but the actual final shot. It feels to me, oddly, as though the book goes on just a touch too long, which is a rare complain that I have.

All in all, though, I enjoyed this work, and elements of it will definitely stick with me. If you’re a horror fan, check this one out.