Night of the Mannequins: A Tor.com Original

Five friends, Sawyer, Shanna, JR, Tim, and Danielle try to play an innocent prank at the movie theater one of them works at. Sawyer, the mastermind of the plan, decides to get that last laugh against the assistant manager and with the help of his friends he brings a mannequin, named Manny, they discovered as children into the movie theater! Everything goes smoothly, the tickets are purchased, the mannequin is assembled, all that’s left is for the prank to come to it’s hilarious conclusion! Going into this, none of them expected to lose their lives. But hey, collateral damage.

I received an electronic ARC of Night of the Mannequins from Netgalley and the publisher Tor in return for my honest review, which follows below. I thank both for the opportunity. As kids, a group of friends find a mannequin in a creek bed and play a series of pranks with "Manny." During their sophomore summer, they decide they've outgrown Manny, so they decide to send him off with one last epic prank, and end up regretting it. That's the bare bones of this novella, and really all you should be given in the way of hard facts of the contents. Sharing too much would ruin your own uncertain steps through this mental maze that Stephen Graham Jones lays out for us. I am divided on what I think the truth is, I feel several readings, and maybe several different decisions are in my future. There is death. Inexplicable things happen around town that may be part of this or not. The narrator is seeing things clearly or horribly distorted. These are things that are made clear early on and left for you to work out on your own. It is a mindbogglingly trippy read that I loved just as much it left me hollowed out at the end. He writes horror that gives you emotion that you can't remove yourself from; as you read the story you will be broken as the characters are, or in your own unexpected ways, as you react to the situations he presents. I love that about his writing, that no matter the length, he is able to give you a complete story, fully realized characters, and complex concepts. When you're done reading, you're left drained and trying to recover so that you can read more by him. I rated this 5 stars because I would recommend this to others, give as a gift, re-read and will buy a physical copy for myself when this is out.