#184 in Horror
My Heart Is a Chainsaw
- 416
- Pages
- about 8 h
- Reading time
- Bram Stoker Award for Novel
- Locus Award for Best Horror Novel
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Our view
A heroine obsessed with slasher films gives “My Heart Is a Chainsaw” its voice and its method; the novel honours the genre and takes it apart. When a body turns up in the town lake, Jade is certain a slasher story has begun, and certain too that the part of final girl belongs to someone else. It opens “The Indian Lake Trilogy” and will mean most to readers who know the films it keeps citing.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
My Heart Is a Chainsaw is a 2021 horror novel by Stephen Graham Jones and the first book in The Indian Lake Trilogy. The book is the winner of the 2021 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel. It received critical praise for its references to, and deconstruction of, the slasher film genre.
Reading order · The Indian Lake Trilogy
Full order & progress →- My Heart Is a ChainsawThis book
7.47.4 / 10 - Don't Fear the Reaper
7.87.8 / 10 - The Angel of Indian Lake
7.87.8 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.3 across 271 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 65% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Horror average of 7.5. That is how 7.4 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 6.3 | 6 | 2% |
| Hardcover | 7.3 | 265 | 98% |
Frequently asked
How long is My Heart Is a Chainsaw?
It has 416 pages — longer than 55% of the ranked books in Horror.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Horror — with scores between 7.3 and 7.4, closest to this book.
