This review was first published on our Substack in September 2025. My sister Trex wrote it.
***This review contains spoilers for “My Heart is a Chainsaw” and its sequel “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Stephen Graham Jones proceed with caution***
Jennifer Daniels is back in town. It’s been four years since the summer of book one and Jennifer is coming home reluctantly. This book explores what the aftermath of a slasher could look like for survivors in the real world. How would the legal system respond to a person who had to kill or be killed? How would lawyers and prosecutors deal with a huge body count and a suspicious lack of hard evidence pointing at the identity of the killer? In the time between books, Jennifer Daniels is charged with and prosecuted for a number of crimes. Her heroism in opening the dam to stop the forest fire is reduced to destruction of government property. Surviving the massacre and then being shuffled through the judicial system leaves Jennifer disconnected from the version of herself that was Jade. She wants to be Jennifer now but being on parole means moving home to the house she inherited from her dead father.
Letha Mondragon has severe facial disfigurement from her run-in with Stacy Graves and has endured multiple reconstructive surgeries to try and reattach her jaw. She’s in constant pain and her jaw is wired shut. She has married Banner Tompkins and has a baby. She processes the trauma of everything that happened in book one by making herself as much an expert on slashers as Jade ever was.
Jennifer and Letha are just two examples among many in the book that believably portray characters surviving a huge collective trauma. Nobody miraculously bounced back or conveniently moved on. Everyone in town lives with their hackles permanently up. This plus a record breaking blizzard set the stage for a new outbreak of killings. Proofrock is cut off from the outside world with a notorious serial killer on the loose. Jade, Letha, and probationary deputy Banner Tompkins are trying to keep history from repeating itself while fighting to stay alive themselves.
This book is every bit as good as the first. It just is. In fact, I think I liked it a bit better. Jennifer’s reluctant journey back to Jade is heartbreaking and thrilling at the same time. We get to see a more mature and sober version of her leading a group of fellow Proofrockers who actually grasp the stakes this time around. Jones delivered a new set of slasher tropes interwoven with stunning surprises. His characters remained nuanced and interesting. Old characters got new layers and new characters were just as developed. “Don’t Fear the Reaper” is a fantastic book and honestly the best thing you can do is to just go read it.
Darker Books 