Rating: 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 for the killer last quarter.
Full disclosure: on several occasions, I almost failed to finish My Heart Is a Chainsaw, Stephen Graham Jones’ slow-burning literary ode to slashers; yet by the story’s high-octane climax, I was nervously swinging my legs and biting my nails because I couldn’t imagine how it would all go down on the final page. The protagonist is someone I didn’t like too well (though I empathized with her because of her toxic home life and outsider status). At the book’s conclusion, however, I was totally converted to Jade’s camp—tears-in-my-eyes, lump-in-my-throat silent salute—no joke. She took me along for the sometimes meandering but ultimately worthwhile journey; I had no choice but to finish the book to see if she’d make it out alive.
[SPOILER ALERT] It’s like the scene in The Neverending Story when Sebastien realizes he’s part of the book, too. I was calling out the empress’s name: “JAAAADDDEEEEE!” [END SPOILER ALERT]
Rewind to the beginning so you can catch a clue: Jade is a horror-obsessed half-Indian (the author’s term, not mine) outsider with an AWOL mom and an abusive, drunken dad who’s the poster manchild for bottom-of-the-barrel bio fathers. Our antiheroine skulks around raving like a horror-crazed town crier about how Proofrock, her paved-paradise-for-a-parking-lot hometown, is primed to get bathed in the blood and entrails of its unsuspecting denizens.
Enter Letha Mondragon, the ridiculously named, reluctant-to-carry-the-torch, classic final girl. Jade encounters Letha in the school bathroom and time stands still. *cue slow-zoom moment* Awestruck, Jade embarks upon an audacious mission: convince this perfect specimen born for the leading role of Last Lady Standing to accept her rightful place as slasher headliner while Jade counts the days until the inevitable massacre begins…and here’s where I almost put the book down. The time biding verges on excruciating. With a few overly detailed essays peppered throughout to demonstrate Jade’s horror obsession and show how isolated she is—her teacher, Mr. Holmes, is the only one who gives her a glimmer of compassion—the book’s bulked up more than a post-slay Jason Voorhees (and not in an good way). As the underdog protagonist, Jade’s annoying and single-minded, but she’s not boring. However, the stalled plot tried my patience to the point of nearly DNF’ing.
Just when I thought I couldn’t bear another chapter of Jade moping around and failing to convince people that the town’s slasher Armageddon was almost upon them, bodies hit the floor with a savageness I’d anticipated given the books subject matter…nonetheless, the depictions of brutal carnage and ensuing mayhem snapped me into survival mode. From the last 100-odd pages on, I devoured each gory word, every riveting twist and turn.
When all is said and done, it takes talent to rouse me from my relative stupor once I’ve pretty much checked out on a book. Graham quite literally saved the best for last. Now that Jade’s character is firmly established, I’m expecting the second installment in the trilogy, Don’t Fear the Reaper, to avoid its predecessor’s prominent water treading and cut straight to the chase, kicking ass and taking names.