A Mannequin for Christmas by Timothy Janovsky Review

A Christmas romance for Barbie fans who wished Ken and Allan got their own love story.
 

Henry Aster swears he is unlucky when it comes to love. He thought he’d finally found The One, but a sudden break-up has left him hopeless right before the holiday season.
 

Facing another family Christmas alone, Henry makes a wish for “The Perfect Man.” The next morning, when he arrives at the Jersey Shore vintage shop he manages, he finds one of the male display mannequins has sprung to life and entirely wrecked the place.
 

The magicked man is gorgeous, of course, but he comes with a Cinderella-style If he doesn’t experience true, human love before the midnight chime on New Year’s Eve, he will turn back into a mannequin for good.
 

Now Henry doesn’t have to show up to family Christmas alone. The catch? This new man—self-named Aidan Smith—knows nothing about being a human. Henry has one month to teach Aidan how to be a functioning person in the modern world and the swoony boyfriend that will win over his family. It’s an arduous task that draws them close together... but can human love ever really be true?

The following review is based on a complimentary ARC provided by St. Martin’s Press via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Mixing elements from both holiday and light magical romance genres, Timothy Janovsky’s A Mannequin for Christmas novel is a light-hearted and cute story perfect for the holidays, though it’s still a solid read outside of the winter months (I read the ARC going into the summer, oops). A cross between the 1980’s movie Mannequin and the classic Disney movie Life Sized, paired with the wishing/midnight hour premise of Cinderella, the story has a charming whimsical feel despite clearly having the light spice and style of an adult romance novel. Likewise, the comedic and sillier moments are nicely balanced out with more serious and somber content, resulting in a well-rounded novel that’s far more ambitious than most holiday themed stories.

The story follows Henry’s struggles and insecurities revolving around maintaining his Aunt Isla’s vintage items store as well as his recent breakup, and in a moment of despair, he makes a wish at the afternoon magic hour for a perfect man. Between Henry’s amusing horror at the mannequin/Aidan’s sudden appearance and Aidan’s childlike confusion at how to be a functional human, the story on paper is quite light-hearted and playful. Although it’s only briefly mentioned in the premise, besides the humanized mannequin narrative, there’s a secondary storyline revolving around Henry’s Aunt Isla who has entrusted her store Isla’s Attic to him following her admittance to a senior living center as well as Henry’s diminished passion for creating art. Although the perfect man-nequin romance is the eye-catching hook of the novel, the other plot threads are equally as important and compelling that really tie the whole story together.

While early chapters start out rather silly and comically ridiculous courtesy of Aidan’s ignorance at being a human (the narrative decision to make Aidan initially naïve and helpless at living is quite a choice, more on that shortly), there’s far more weight behind the story beyond the initial goofiness. Despite the colorful and festive flourishes, there’s a notable wistful, melancholy feeling that runs quietly through all the events of the story. From Henry’s increasingly heavy realization of his beloved Aunt Isla’s mortality, his incredibly terrible sense of self-worth both professionally and romantically, Aidan’s unexpectedly well-written sense of existential crisis and lack of family/history, A Mannequin for Christmas is not just fun hijinks and meet-cutes.

While Janovsky’s writing style is casually modern with an extra touch of queer flamboyance perfectly suited for the novel’s genre, there’s an added sense of confidence and introspection that I found particularly great. Having read several of his past novels, there’s always more ambition and solid character drama beyond the light-hearted presentations. At a surface level, Janovsky’s tone and humor walks a fine line between being endearingly sweet vs embarrassingly cringe (I for one like a hint of cringe in my life personally), but despite the occasional slapstick shenanigans, the end result is always really wholesome and warm-hearted. While the intentional jokes hit the right notes, both holiday-themed and not (references to the 12 Days of Christmas lyrics were particularly fun and a certain recurring joke based around wig snatching had me rolling repeatedly), it’s the quieter moments that I found particularly impressive. Most afternoon beach scenes that featured Henry reflecting on past events were highlights for me as well as Aidan’s curious probing around Henry’s numerous insecurities. But the story’s best narrative moments were pretty much every scene involving Aunt Isla, both Henry and Aidan jointly as well as those separately. The maternal and queer wisdom she provided both men as well as her general presence in the story added so much and is the main reason why this story is quite enjoyable and rewarding to read even outside of winter months.

As the story progressed and the focal Christmas family reunion dinner occurred, A Mannequin for Christmas pleasantly caught me off-guard with quite a few of its plot twists. For the majority of the book, the story intentionally captures the cheesy and familiar Hallmark Christmas movie feel with a queer spin, a point that the novel constantly pokes fun at via Aidan’s binge-watching of Hallmark movies and HBO dramas. But the book’s expected 3^rd act conflicts went in a far different direction than one would expect for Hallmark-style stories and one that I personally really enjoyed. It almost seems like a romance novel requirement to have romantic leads get into some sort of argument, separate, only for them to realize their differences (usually miscommunication-based) to finish out with a happily ever after. A Mannequin for Christmas followed that formula but had Henry and Aidan part for very different reasons. There’s a constant theme of trying to find love as well as allowing oneself to be vulnerable despite the risks of a fall, but the characters’ mutual understandings and decisions just before the story’s conclusion were chef’s kiss. I have nothing but respect for Janovsky’s risky narrative decision for that last separation for the sake of important character growth, making their Henry and Aidan’s later reunion all the more sweeter and satisfying to read. Some other reviewers felt that the ending and reunion was out of place or poorly executed, which I sharply disagree with. If you pay attention to the recurring themes of Henry’s conflicted feelings caring for Aidan and the fear of living for oneself and passions, the ending makes perfect sense and makes for a far stronger character conclusion vs a simpler HEA if they stay together 24/7.

The story is presented from both Henry and Aidan’s point of view, with chapters alternating, though that’s not always the case as Henry is clearly the main character of the two. When it comes to the characters, Janovsky did a great job of making them both inherently likable and very relatable. All of Janovsky’s past main characters have explored different areas of neurodivergence, and his portrayal of Henry’s anxiety-ridden internal intrusive thoughts were well done without it taking over the novel’s entire story. While Henry also had a recurring issue of being a perfectionist and trend for jealousy, I never found him off-putting or unpleasant (compare that to Janovsky’s past MC Matthew Prince). I also have nothing bad to say about Aunt Isla who was colorfully distinctive and a parental icon most queer kids would love to have. On the other hand, while Aidan’s eventual introspective and curious personality grew on me as well as his matter-of-fact dryness, I had mixed feelings about his perspective initially.

While I enjoyed reading the novel as a whole, the early chapters from Aidan’s perspective required quite a bit of suspension of disbelief and I found a few choices relating to his character odd. When the story first introduces Aidan, he has almost a childlike demeanor and knowledge, almost like an old-school robot or AI personality. That’s to be expected for the story’s premise, but Janovsky makes the narrative choice to have Aidan the mannequin has zero knowledge of living as a human. While issues involving social cues, concepts of money and jobs, and all the confusion around romance are to be expected, Aidan is portrayed as having no idea what food is, what a store is, how basic things work, etc. That’s fine, but then right after he’s shown to know how to use a sink faucet to drink water (he has the instinct to drink water from a tap vs his confusion about a fridge holding food) as well as being able to use door handles and other everyday objects. The next day Henry must show Aidan how to take a shower (yes, I know it’s for romance purposes and Aidan stripping eye-candy) but the story conveniently sidesteps his knowledge of using the bathroom. Normally I wouldn’t fault the story for skipping over these less flattering topics, but the novel goes into great detail about Aidan’s crazed food feasting, aches, and ignorance for very similar things where the book seems to be at odds with how far it wants to take the “living as a human” concept. I personally would’ve preferred it if the novel opted for a less literal approach to the living human idea and had Aidan already know how to do basic human activities but struggle with the societal elements only. Henry teaching Aidan how to exist was generally at its best for me when they were discussing more abstract philosophical topics or human etiquette rather than physically being alive.

The other potential sticking point that some readers may also take minor issue with is the unorthodox caretaker/creator and student/subordinate relationship between Henry and Aidan. Due to the choice for Aidan to start with a very child-like innocence and ignorance, there’s a possibility that their uneven power dynamics early-on can feel slightly creepy or off-putting. Both men are clearly physically adults but when one has such a naivety to them while the other has thirsting eyes, there’s something that feels a little wrong if you think too much about it. To Janovsky’s credit this issue goes away pretty fast (Henry’s self-awareness of the situation helps a lot) and the 3^rd act conflict/separation is entirely intentional to address concerns regarding Aidan’s sheltered nature, but again this would be less noticeable had the story not focused so much on Aidan’s literal learning to exist as a human and Henry having to act as a half parental guardian, half fake boyfriend debacle.

While I had some minor nitpicks with a few of the narrative choices near the start of the story, from about the half-way point onward I thought the rest of the novel was excellent! The character work, relationship shifts, introspective reflections, I feel like Janovsky’s character work just gets better and better with every one of his novels that I have the pleasure of reading (Never Been Kissed’s Alice Kelly was no slouch, but Aunt Isla is considerably more complex and nuanced of a senior female character). And regardless of what is happening in the story, there’s always a sense of warmth and earnestness that makes his novels so easy to fall in love with, especially for younger queer readers that may also suffer from similar social anxieties and worries as his main characters. While the holiday theme and the mannequin premise get your attention (not to mention the great book cover design), the thoughtful reflections about love and life are why you’ll stay well beyond New Years Eve, just like Aidan.