Oh my goodness! What did I just read? Certainly not what this novella promised (pretended?) to be, i.e. a horror story about murderous mannequins: most of the blurbs I read online spoke of “a teen prank going wrong and leading to mayhem”, but things turned out to be very different. The title itself is misleading since, for starters, there is just one mannequin involved, and then that solitary mannequin’s rampage never really happens - not outside of the unreliable narrator’s twisted imagination, that is.

When reviewing the books I read I always try to keep story details or spoilers to a minimum, but in this case I need to make an exception because otherwise I could not detail the reasons why this novella did not work for me - and anyway the author himself spoils everything in the very first sentence when Sawyer, the narrator, shares the fact that “now most of us are dead, and I’m really starting to feel kind of guilty about it all”.

Sawyer and his friends - Tim, JR, Shanna and Danielle - have known each other since kindergarten or thereabouts, quite inseparable and prone to more or less successful practical jokes. Many of those involve a male mannequin - named Manny in an underwhelming show of inventiveness - that they dressed in their parents’ discarded clothes and displayed in various poses all around their neighborhood. When they decide to use Manny for a last prank in the movie theater where Shanna works part-time, posing him as a moviegoer to scare the theater’s assistant manager, something does not work as planned and what’s more, Manny seems to have disappeared as if he walked out on his own power.

Sawyer’s terrified consideration that Manny might have acquired independence, together with that newfound mobility, takes on further strength when a few days later a freak accident kills Shanna and her family: he’s now convinced that Manny is out for vengeance and will target them all, together with their loved ones. Moreover, Sawyer is certain - given the recent theft of fertilizer pellets all over town - that Manny has grown all out of proportion and that he must be able to stomp them like insects, so he decides to kill all his surviving friends himself, to spare the life of their families.

To call his reasoning - and therefore the development of this story - preposterous feels to me like the understatement of the year: should I consider Sawyer’s actions the workings of a deranged mind that pieces unrelated happenings into an insane puzzle? In that case the story lacks any connection to mental troubles, because there is no prior indication of them, even taking into account the unreliability of the narrator himself. Or is Sawyer’s killing spree something he always had in mind, so he used the excuse of Rampaging Manny to justify his actions? Again, there is no indication of that: one moment he sounds like your typical teenager, then he turns into a serial killer hiding behind the twisted logic of saving a greater number of lives by taking those of his friends.

The absurdity of the story goes hand in hand with a tone that probably wants to be humorous, but fails to achieve this goal for me, just as it fails to create any suspense because it’s clear from the start that there will be no murderous mannequin roaming the streets, since it’s all a product of Sawyer’s mind…

This story did not scare, did not amuse and in the end only managed to annoy me - its only redeeming quality being that it was mercifully short. ( )

This was one wild and weird novella and I absolutely loved it. Remember that Doctor Who episode "Rose" where Rose and the Doctor were chased by mannequins and how creepy that was? Now imagine if those mannequins were murders hell bent on killing you and your friends. What would you do? This is the position Sawyer Grimes finds himself in at the start of Night of the Mannequins.

Sawyer Grimes is one of five bored teens who decide to pose a discarded store mannequin as though it’s a real patron in a movie theater in a suburb of Dallas, Tex. They all think it’s a funny prank—until Sawyer sees the mannequin walk out of the theater at the movie’s end. When one of the friends is killed, along with her entire family, in a freak accident shortly thereafter, Sawyer becomes convinced that the mannequin’s to blame. Believing “Manny” has morphed into a Frankenstein-style monster bent on offing its creators with no regard for who else gets hurt in the process, Sawyer decides that it’s his responsibility to kill his fellow pranksters before Manny can get to them, and thus lessen the collateral damage for their families. As the story unfolds the border between the supernatural and psychological blends. Sawyer's innocence unravels before us as he weighs his options and plans and justifies his kills, trying to stay one step ahead of Manny. is there a supernatural cause, a psychopath on the loose, or both? Did Sawyer Grimes really see the Mannequin walk out of the theater on that fateful night? Stephen Graham Jones never provides a clear answer. The reader is left to answer this question on their own.

Night of the Mannequins is a twisted, wild ride about the loss of innocence, the metamorphosis of the teenage psyche, and the pain of growing up. It is also a tender story about friendship and protecting others. You can tell Jones had a blast writing this novel, cared about his characters, and really enjoyed employing and messing with the tropes found within the horror genre. I'm eager to read more of his work and highly recommend this novella.

Thanks to Netgalley and Tor for the arc. ( )

This one has grown on me since finishing it - a good sign for an intelligent horror book. [[Stephen Graham Jones]] is his typically brief self here with this one, describing one young person's terrifying descent into madness. A group of ne'er-do-wells play a practical joke on their friend who works at a movie theater. They've been tossed from he establishment by their friend's milquetoast boss for acting up during movies. So, they dress up a mannequin, smuggle him into the theater through a back door, put him in a seat, and start shenanigans anew. As practical jokes go, it's somewhat anti-climactic. Soon after, though, each one of the friends gets picked off in some horrible way. Our hero, anti-hero is more accurate, believes that the mannequin has achieved homicidal sentience, and decides he must kill his friends before the mannequin gets to them. Why, you ask? Well, let's not get bogged down in rational thought, as our anti-hero is all out of that kind of thinking.

What's grown on me since finishing the book, is Jones' recount of the main character's distorted perspectives and fall into madness. It's quite provocative. Most might just toss recycle the book for its pulp content, but there's more going on here than a sentient and homicidal mannequin - how does one go mad? What does that look like?

Recommended!!!!
4 bones!!!! ( )

I felt in the mood for a good horror story and thought to try this one out because I enjoyed Stephen Graham Jones’s The Only Good Indians so much and because it was a bit of a shorter read. So good! I listened to it in just a couple nights because It was such an enthralling story. It’s one of those books that has you guessing the authenticity of the narrator from the beginning and trying to piece together which things may be true and which things may be just one person’s version of the truth and how those two things might be able to combine into a frightening reality.

When the main character was younger, he and a group of friends found a mannequin out behind their house in the woods. They played with it and set up lots of pranks on people with “Manny” for the summer, then quickly forgot about him in one of their garages. Now, they’re about to graduate and are looking to pull a final big prank. In comes the idea of getting Manny back out. And in comes the story of a prank gone very wrong. ( )

different take on what one may assume would be a straightforward supernatural story about mannequins ( )