Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune

4 reviews

throwback682's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional sad

• 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Grief, Gaslighting, Confinement, Blood, Abandonment, Xenophobia, War, Kidnapping, Panic attacks/disorders, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Medical content, Suicide, and Death

Moderate: Child death, Excrement, Sexual content, Dementia, and Animal death

Proceed with caution if you have experience with loved ones with dementia. This book also has a “sociopathic” character and I personally think handles cluster B disorders insensitively.

keya_caivalur's review

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Death of parent, Violence, Xenophobia, Grief, Dementia, and Murder

Moderate: War, Slavery, Abandonment, and Animal death

Minor: Police brutality, Cancer, Dysphoria, Sexual content, Death, Genocide, Chronic illness, Confinement, Torture, Excrement, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, and Self harm

kaiyakaiyo's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

I’m gonna be honest, this book bored the hell out of me. I’ve read two other Klune books before this and they were able to hook me from page one,… this one still had me yawning on page 100. 

It has none of the heart or whimsy the other books have, and the plot is deeply unimaginative. It leaned way too heavily on Pinocchio and didn’t even do robot apocalypse well to balance it out. It felt like if you put Pinocchio, the Terminator, and WALL·E into a blender and Pinocchio was the banana. The result was an over-Pinnochioed bland machine apocalypse smoothie with a lil iRobot garnish. 

To be fair, Pinocchio was boring to me as a kid so i wasn’t expecting to revel in the Easter eggs, but the plot was just unbearably slow to fit in all the details. The entire kidnapping arc was a waste of pages, and clearly just meant to adhere to the Pinocchio bit. The comic relief robots were incessant and their dialogue contrived, the romance dynamic was kinda weird and very rushed enemies to lovers coded, and the side characters weren’t at all interesting. Anything that could have redeemed this book failed to do so. I kinda liked the idea of robots ending up as shadows of the vices the humans that built them had, but Klune made that an afterthought to the shoddy plot. 

The Blue Fairy was kinda intriguing, and their master plan was fascinating, but it felt like Klune made them genderqueer for shock value. “look at how the spectrum of human sexuality translates into a robot!” … we get it without seeing them naked. the slot machine genitals seem…. in poor taste. 

Anyways, I’m going to go watch The Terminator and WALL·E back to back 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Genocide, Xenophobia, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Medical content, Murder, Kidnapping, and Panic attacks/disorders

aexileigh's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Xenophobia, and Death of parent

Moderate: Kidnapping, Death, and Grief

Minor: Animal death