That black-and-white book cover design, with a slash going through it, feels very appropriate. ( My Heart is a Chainsaw might as well come with a “gags guaranteed!” sticker on the cover.) You’ll white knuckle your copy while grimacing… and gagging.

While those terrors do eventually arrive, it’s not until about the 60% mark that gore-seekers will get their payoff. Through these “Slasher 101” papers, we fill in our own gaps of horror movie knowledge and get foreshadowing of terrors to come. Long expository third person chapters with long paragraphs and long sentences are punctuated with first person school papers Jade has written for history class, naturally all using her slasher-passion lens. Is she delusional and just seeing things she wants to see, or is there really a violent killer on the loose?Īfter an intense opening chapter where very bad, very scary things happen to a young tourist couple from the Netherlands out on the town’s lake, the book downshifts and turns into the slowest of slow burns to acclimate readers to Jade’s life and mindset. A half-Indian 17-year-old girl named Jade is so obsessed with slasher movies that she’s convinced the plot of one is emerging in real life in her small Idaho town.

I can honestly say I’ve never read a novel like this one. Tolerance of extreme gore - animal (elk) and human. My Heart is a Chainsaw is a book that takes an awful lot from its readers.Īn in-depth knowledge of slasher films and pop culture references.

Like people, there are books that give and books that take.

Heart is a chainsaw