Reviews with content warning for Torture - In the Lives of Puppets

I wanted to love this book so very much, however, I’m afraid that I simply liked it. The novel is cute with an edge of darkness to it but overall, a decent read. The characters are lovable and unique and the storyline, while predictable, was entertaining.

I suppose it fell a bit short for me for a number of reasons. The foremost being that Klune as shown us he can write better than this. While, House on the Cerulean Sea comes to mind, even the less fantastic novel Under the Whispering Door felt more enticing. That, of course, isn’t to say that this book was bad but rather not as good.

Much of the storyline felt forced, trying to fit into the Pinocchio retelling, and some of the dialog seems a bit clunky (and not due to the robots). This isn’t to mention the strange obsession these robots had with sex… but that last bit might just be a me thing…. Not sure.

Regardless, an overall decent book, though not one I’d read again and not one of Klune’s best.

Quotes:

“Forgiving others could be difficult, but forgiving yourself can sometimes feel impossible.”

TW: Blood and Violence, Minor TW: Abandonment, Animal death, Body shaming, confinement, Death of a parent, Death, Dementia, Fire/Fire injure, Genocide, Grief, Sexual Content, Torture.

Content Warnings

amelianotthepilot's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional inspiring lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book wrecked me. A combination of Wall-e and Pinocchio in a sci-fi setting.

A great improvement from his other books. It’s wild to see that he wrote something like The Lightning Struck Heart and is now all the way to this. The writing is really well done the plot is interesting the concept and world building spectacular the characters feel so real and emotional AND queer representation! The only main flaw and my major complaint is that he continues to not have a single female character. Maybe you could argue that as a man he’s just writing from what he knows and doesn’t want to overstep his bounds but at this point it’s ridiculous. Queer male relationships can exist alongside female characters. They are not exclusive. so far out of all of his books i’ve read so far he continues to have maybe one extremely minor female character in his books and all other characters are male/male coded. Even in this book, a book full of robots, only one character was female and one was nonbinary/gender fluid (it was unclear they were an omnipresent robot system).

The plot follows Gio a robot inventor man who lives in a remote forrest next to a scrapyard who is raising an orphan boy child, Victor, as his own. As he grows up Victor makes friends from scrapyard discarded robots, he collects a Nurse robot named Nurse RATCHED, and a WALL-E-esque roomba named Rambo. Then one day he finds a male android in a pile and decides to rebuild him. As stories go everything changed and went to hell and onwards goes the adventure. It was a whimsical journey full of interesting conundrums in a dystopian US that really left me introspective about relationships. Also we love some ace representation even though it came surrounded by a lack of female characters. Certainly doesn’t pass the bechdel…

Content Warnings

gen_wolfhailstorm's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Reading vlogs:
Part 1 -
Part 2 -

Thank you to Black Crow PR and Tor for a physical early copy. All opinions remain my own.

This was a fantastic reimagining of Pinnoccio (I liked the inital turning the concept on its head that Victor was already a 'real boy', but boy, was it more than that). I think it taking the more science fiction, dystopian route enabled the story to develop into a much wider discussion of humanity, 'playing god' with AI and the very real potential for what we're so desperate to create (and surpass every other nation in the science for) usurping us and running things...better? ...Maybe. (you can talk amongst yourselves on that one.. )

The romance was very, very slow burn and I loved it. It wasn't the main thread of narration but it somehow felt integral to the plot and was meaningful and impactful too.

The family relationships were absolutely beautiful. The love that this miss-match of loveable characters had for each other was so heartfelt and powerful and I adored reading about the lengths that each and every one of them would go to, in order to keep the others safe. I couldn't help but think that this is what family should aspire to be, and I think this thought is made even more poignant when the reader takes a step back and recalls that the majority of the cast are robot's, machines and AI of some description. If they can do it so profoundly, it makes you really wonder about humanity.

There is so much I could say about all the characters but I'll just stick to Victor. Being the potentially last of his kind, he was even more of a unique individual. His devotion to his loved ones was admirable and his determination to overcome his internal battles was just as inspiring. He made for a complex, challenging and a (learning to be) emotionally aware protagonist that I loved to read about.

I'm sure I've expressed more feeling here and there within my (multitude of) reading vlog(s) already so do feel free to check those out, if you'd like. For now, I will leave this review with this: I loved this book!

Content Warnings

maaikereadsbooks_'s review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Many thanks to Pan Macmillan and TJ Klune for the advanced copy of In the Lives of Puppets via NetGalley, in return for my honest and unbiased review. Quick note: I don’t recap plots in my reviews, as it’s easy enough to read the book’s synopsis and blurbs, I purely focus on my feelings & opinions of how the books makes me feel.

This was my first TJ Klune book, and it certainly will not be my last. I adored this book!

Having never been a big fan of the original Pinocchio story (not sure why, it just never really interested me), the story woven by Klune in this book made my enjoyment two-fold: a great tale AND a version of Pinocchio I actually could get into!

I thoroughly enjoyed the way new bits and pieces of information and revelations were dropped into the story as you moved along. Rather than a grand reveal at the end (although it does build up to a climax, don’t worry), you get nuggets of gold occasionally dropped on you out of nowhere which enrich the narrative, nudge the direction it was going in, or sometimes, completely blow it apart. Brilliant storywriting.

The fact that this was written as a fully queer story was the icing on the cake. But it’s not just your standard gay or sapphic love story. It’s more, it’s deeper, it’s queerer.

Highly recommend this – it’s high up on my list of 2023 favourites.

Tropes: fairy tale retelling, grumpy/sunshine, LGBTQ+, peril, redemption/dark past

Spice: 1.5/5

Trigger warnings: Blood/Gore, Confinement, Death, Death of a parent, Genocide, Guns/weapons, Kidnapping, Mental Illness, Murder, PTSD, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, War

Rating 5/5

Content Warnings

the_bees_books's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

A really sweet, if slightly tonally and message confused, book about what it is to be human, what it is to forgive, and what makes a family.

Content Warnings

thaliareads's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Thank you to Tor Books and NetGalley for the ARC!

Boy meets robot in this simultaneously heartwarming and heart-wrenching novel by TJ Klune. While in some ways this novel is a reimagining of the Adventures of Pinocchio, and you can see the mirroring of themes and even motifs from the original novel, the science fiction setting sets it apart as a tale of its own.

When Victor finds an android hanging on to life in the salvage yard he knows he has to help, but little does he know the chain of events that this will set off. Before he knows it, Victor is forced to trek across a land completely unfamiliar to him in order to bring his family back together. Luckily, he has his rag-tag group of robot friends to protect him from and guide him through a world that wants humans gone. Will he be able to reunite with his captured family? What will be the cost, and will things ever go back to how they were before?

Need I say WOW! This was another huge hit for me from TJ Klune. The amount of wit and humor spread throughout the otherwise high-stakes story helps to balance the tone and make this a book I would have read in one sitting if I had the time. In a way, this is a coming-of-age story because Victor has been living in seclusion since childhood and has a lot to learn about the world if he’s going to succeed in navigating it. He also has a lot to learn about love and romance, and how that looks for him knowing he identifies as asexual. Overall, this book has an engaging cast of characters and an interesting and dynamic world and lore. While I didn’t see the ending coming, I think it was very fitting to the lessons learned by the characters throughout their journey.

Content Warnings

More...