In a world that always feel a little bit broken, a little less than wonderful and a whole lot disappointing, depending on the day, perfection seems like a wholly alluring idea.
Especially when, like vintage goods store owner Henry Aster, you have recently found the man you were convinced was the The One and who was about to be proposed to, making out on the couch of your apartment with a hot sort-of friend.
Bang goes all those idealistic dreams of love and wedded bliss and hope for the future and in comes a wish, made fervently on the beach one night, that the universe could send you the perfect man, someone who would be exactly and who wouldn’t break your oft-broken heart.
In Timothy Janovsky’s latest magically festive romcom, A Mannequin for Christmas, Henry’s desperate plea out into the ether is answered and in a way that seems outrageously impossible, then annoying and then … well, what follows finding your wondow display mannequin alive and excited about discovering what it means to be human?
Even better when he’s decided he LOVES you, and all you have to do is fall in love with him by 31 December and he can go on living forever … with you.
Well, that’s likely something none of us have had to grapple with, more’s the pity really because Aidan Smith, as he names himself, is a delight, a joy and it turns out the perfect answer to pleas to the universe for someone to make the Christmas season, and beyond, not as lonely as it always seems to be.
Usually, I’d look for any excuse in the book to stay so I didn’t have to go back to that empty apartment, but Aidan swam to the front of my mind. There’d be someone–a strange someone, but a someone nonetheless–waiting for me when I arrived, and that made the trek back to my car much less leaden.
But is perfect what Henry really needs?
The beauty of A Mannequin for Christmas is that Janovsky isn’t content to spin a simplistic love story at the most wonderful time of the year and leave it at that.
He couldn’t easily do that and readers could revel in the festive joyfulness of it all and be done with it; but A Mannequin for Christmas is more than just a love story, a simple need for someone to make the days fuller and Christmas dinner with the family that whole lot less awkward.
This delightfully rich and full and lightly magical novel dares to ask whether Henry needs more than just a perfect guy – and Aidan, who is eager, sincere, caring, guileless, excitable and endlessly, loveably inquisitive, is as perfect as you can get, and happily he’s hot too – and whether maybe he needs to let go of that need for perfection, a craving for imperfect life to look like the movies, and accept that the flawed existence he has is something wondrously good in and of itself.
Henry doesn’t think he’s asking too much; hurt and bullied and afraid, the hallmark of someone on the margins who has seen the cruel imperfection of life up close far more than he likes, Henry just wants to be happy, not realising that implicit in that is a need for the world, and his man, to bend perfectly to that unattainable ideal.
(courtesy official author site / (c) Rebecca Phillips Photography)
For all of its deep diving, which is empathetically and thoughtfully executed, A Mannequin for Christmas is also a lot of whimsically comedic fun.
How could it not be when your main character is dealing with a store window display mannequin sprung to life, seemingly out of nowhere who in the great tradition of outsiders trying to learn what it means to be human, takes things literally, doesn’t quite the weird contrary subtleties of the human condition and who can’t quite work out that what happens on TV is always a manual for how you should live your life.
Aidan is a funny and sweet and gorgeously sincere delight and as Henry adjusts to this new person in his life, he begins to slowly discover what it means for him to live, and most importantly to love, and that simply accepting someone for who they are, and Aidan is well and truly out of the box and not your usual run of the mill human – he’s not even human during the day, reverting back to a mannequin when the store is open for business – is more than just enough.
It can be the greatest gift you can give them, and by extension yourself, and as A Mannequin for Christmas continues on its magically buoyant, funny and charmingly heartfelt way, it’s a joy watching Aidan come more and more alive and having Henry, happily rather imperfectly, struggle with what his new love’s presence means for him.
According to the magic card, I still had six days left. Almost a week. 144 hours. 8,640 minutes. 518,400 seconds. If Henry wasn’t in love with me and the Asters weren’t truly my family yet, they could be– they would be–by the end of the night. I’d make sure of it. I had a sparkling insurance policy tucked away in my pocket.
As someone who was bullied horrifically every day of my school life by people who hated me for being gay, I can well understand why Henry craves, wants and thinks he needs perfection.
And why especially at Christmas, with so much family togetherness and wonder and endless talk of love and joy, it matters to have someone perfectly wonderful by your side.
But what this reviewer has learnt through some pretty tough and illuminating, albeit without a fantastically alive mannequin leading the way, is that perfection is impossible and not what you need; what you do need is someone caring, unconditionally loving and richly, brilliantly alive which is precisely what Aidan is and why, though Henry doesn’t fully appreciate it for much of the novel, he needs him so much.
Sitting firmly and quite wonderfully in the festive romcom, and serving up a deliciously romantic and queerly sweet take on love sprung from the most outlandish of places, A Mannequin for Christmas is a dream of a novel, a funny, happy, stressful, impactful and joyful take on what it means to find love in ways that completely blow your mind and smash your expectations and unwritten internal demands to smithereens.
A Mannequin for Christmas is joyously festive, impossibly romantic, authentically human and cosily, wonderfully reassuring, reminding everyone who reads it that whether it’s at Christmas or any other time of the year, love, in all its flawed, broken and happily imperfect glory, needs to be taken at face value and you need to lean into it, whatever form it takes and however magically it comes your way, and enjoy the journey, imperfect though it may be.