Night of the Mannequins
Ratings102
Average rating3.5
Writing felt overly repetitive and underwhelming. His books are popular, but that one wasn't for me.
I really enjoyed this book. I thought this would be a mannequin slasher but that’s not really what it is. I was a little disappointed about that, but the rest of the book made up for it.
The narration is great as you get to understand the main character and even with some of the wrong things he does you can’t help but want to see this through with him. It had all the right vibes and was a great read after some of the other disappointing books I have read this season.
This book was not what I was expecting but was a great surprise. I already have another of this author’s books on hold.
This was a weird and fun ride! I enjoyed the way the main character was written and loved how the story came together until the end which I wish was a bit more ambiguous. And some end plots points that seemed to be a bit out there and a little random.
Well... this was not what I was expecting.
This book was so original and I definitely haven't read anything quite like this. It was suspenseful and fast-paced. It was a classic horror novella.
I love slashers so this was right up my alley. Sawyer was a character that you couldn't help but root for, despite his horrific actions. I would say more about my thoughts on the plot but I think this is a good book to go into blind.
The ending left me feeling unsatisfied and that's why I couldn't rate this any higher than I had.
This mad weird. I thought for sure I was going to walk away with a phobia of mannequins. I needed a bit more in the end. A paragraph? I'm not asking for much.
I think the most effective parts of this story are the times it comes closest to capturing the feeling of losing connection with childhood friends. It???s not particularly scary or tense and I was never really surprised by where it goes.
Okay this is my second SGJ book after My heart is a chainsaw and I think I've cracked it. His writing style is strange. Even the sentence structure at times is very odd. It's like I need a minute or two to make sense of it. Maybe the intention was to portray teen angst, but honestly it was tough to keep up. Too bad as the plot was boring and quite frankly not scary, which I was hoping for.
Off and on, while I was reading this, I couldn't decide if I was liking it or not. It's a quick read, 130 sparsely populated pages, so I never considered quitting. Since the story is narrated by a character, what was happening was pretty transparent and consequently, there wasn't a lot of surprise/tension. Once it got to the last 20 pages, things got more interesting.
I think it's hard to talk about without giving it away. I can say that it's about one mannequin, a few teenagers, and lots of death. Like the cover marketing says, it is indeed “twisted.” It's super weird and ambiguous, which are things I like. It was also funny at times, in that dark way.
I finished the book with a feeling of “huh...” but it was an entertaining kind of “huh...”
Epic prank bro!
Super fun, weird as fuck, constantly surprising and entertaining as hell. No one does it the way SGJ does.
Whenever I read one of his books I'm always reminded of this quote from an interview with him, “[...]So the deal I made with myself was: you can go to grad school, but you have to be in ninja mode. Go in and steal the good craft and smuggle it back out to science fiction and western and horror.[...]”. He brings big MFA energy to pulpy horror and I fucking love him for it.
3.5 stars
Weird and confusing and eerie. I loved the writing and how it puts the reader into the headspace of the main character and kept me guessing what is happening until the end.
The plot itself was pretty bland, to be honest, but the atmosphere made up for it.
This story was definitely not what I expected going into it but I totally enjoyed it! It‘s a crazy and disturbing ride. I think this is one of the greatest and most special horror stories I‘ve ever read. I‘m in love.
This was so weird, creepy, and campy. I really enjoyed it and the way it was told/written.
Okay so I have a few things to say about this novella. The story was interesting and definitely unique but I realized I just wanted it to be over. I expected something different. With the title Night of the Mannequins I expected creepy mannequins popping up around town or something more spooky.
This is my first time reading Stephen Graham Jones and I don't know if I'm a fan. His writing is too wordy and kind of veers off often with descriptions and tidbits I feel are unnecessary for the story. To be honest, I feel like there are too many run-on sentences that make the story confusing and overwhelming at points. It's like an information overload. I want to read his other works specifically The Only Good Indians, but I'm reluctant to because I could barely get through a novella of only 131 pages. I can't imagine trying to read an entire novel of run on sentences and extra descriptive words. It sounds tedious and boring. I gave the novella 1 star. I did enjoy some parts of the story but his writing style is not for me.
Would have been 4 stars but the train went flying off the rails in the last 20%. Still, I'm a sucker for an unreliable narrator.
More like 4.5 stars.
I have been on the hunt, in 2020, to read stuff that will blow my mind. My loving nickname for the genre of books I am searching for lately is “batshit crazy”. This is very that. Not only did this story of 5 friends who set up an elaborate prank with a mannequin in a movie theater not go in any direction I could have predicted, but it was also so incredibly well written. Jones has a way of putting things that makes crazy things seem logical, almost fated. He uses horror tropes here to the story's advantage and creates patterns and imagery with words- the story plays out like a movie being shown in your head.
3.5 stars!
this was a pretty fun, campy, horror read. I really enjoyed the writing style and how it really just felt like Sawyer was a friend casually talking to me and telling me this weird story. I wish there was a little bit more explanation throughout, especially with the ending, but obviously that's hard to do in such a short story. would definitely recommended and I'm excited to check out more from this author!
This wasn't the book I was expecting, but it was still a decent read. In comparison to SGJ's other books, especially his recent novel The Only Good Indians, I felt like this novella fell flat- but taken objectively by itself it was still kind of fun. The book is set in a town near to where I grew up, so it was fun to see North Texas represented in horror fiction! SGJ also did a great job of expressing character in his quick paced and sometimes rambling writing style in the voice of a teenage narrator, in someways this book reminded me of his earlier work, Mongrels, but with more of an edge. I also appreciated seeing anxiety and saviorism taken to an extreme in this psychological horror, albeit I felt like the book really stretched my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point several times. I think my expectations for this book were perhaps too high, but I still mostly enjoyed this tale.