I actually was looking for new horror authors a few weeks ago and Stephen Graham Jones kept popping up. I decided I wanted to get his book, The Last Final Girl. The bookstore didn't have that one, but they did have Night of the Mannequins, so I figured I'd give this one a try.
It was weird.
This horror novella is 131 pages but honestly might have worked better as a full length novel. It definitely has the slasher feel to it, but working in the psychological aspect of the story line didn't really work given how short the story was. But it has a few promising traits.... like a unreliable, mentally ill narrator who happens to be killing all of his friends for the sake of their families.
In typical teenage, angst ridden fashion, Sawyer and his friends decide to prank their friend Shanna while she's working at one of the local movie theaters. They dust off their old friend, Manny (short for Mannequin), dress him up as a movie-goer, and let the staff freak out around them. Instead, Sawyer begins obsessing over their past summers with Manny, the antics of their friendship, the way they discarded Manny when they got "too old" to keep dragging him around.
Obviously, a teenager who is off his medication probably should have been stopped a lot sooner....but not for the sake of his novella. Honestly, I'll probably give Stephen Graham Jones another shot, but this wasn't a promising start for me.
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