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berodatheelf's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-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 made me sob fully on public transport... Twice! It's funny and sweet with heart wrenching moments. The characters were fantastic and very creative and the romance made me squeal so loudly. This is my first TJ Klune book and I look forward to reading more.
(Extra bonus points for writing a queer Retelling of pinocchio!)
(Extra bonus points for writing a queer Retelling of pinocchio!)
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent, Blood, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content
handful_of_frogs's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
A huge disappointment, Klune seems to be regressing as a writer- this is coming from someone who loved Under the Whispering Door and The House in the Cerulean Sea. If he wants to write an asexual character accurately maybe he should find a premise for them that doesn't involve being attracted to androids. This entire book is a mix of material stolen from Spielberg's AI film, Pinocchio (of course), and a bland d&d campaign. The most interesting character is an anxious Roomba but even a quipping vacuum can't make this novel worth the time it took to read it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Death of parent, Dysphoria, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Police brutality, War, Violence, Bullying, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, and Sexual content
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
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.dancingprince's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
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
4.5
Holds a mirror up to humanity.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: Medical content
Minor: Confinement
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
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
Content Warnings
Moderate: Genocide, Xenophobia, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Medical content, Murder, Kidnapping, and Panic attacks/disorders
amelianotthepilot's review against another edition
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…
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
Graphic: Grief, Medical content, Death, Death of parent, Torture, Violence, Dementia, and Genocide
tiernanhunter's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, and Violence
Minor: Animal death
lastsilversunset's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, and Grief
Minor: Confinement and Medical content
traa's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Abandonment, Fire/Fire injury, and Murder
Moderate: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, Dementia, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Child death, Confinement, Death, and Genocide
Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Death of parent, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Medical content, Drug use, and Sexual content
the_real_al_cal's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Yet another triumph by TJ Klune! One thing I always find consistent in TJ Klune's writing is it can take a little while to settle into his worlds. In every book I've read of his, the start of the book is a little hard to get through, but it's important for context. And then suddenly it picks up the pace and becomes very hard to put down. But knowing that about TJ's work, I always keep going through the beginning because I know I'll be rewarded with beautiful stories.
This book gave me Wizard of Oz vibes in a few different ways. There were no 1:1 comparisons, but several of the characters reminded me of the core group in Wizard of Oz in their attributes and goals, and there was even an Oz-like character present! So if you think you'd like soft sci-fi Wizard of Oz, this is your book!
This book gave me Wizard of Oz vibes in a few different ways. There were no 1:1 comparisons, but several of the characters reminded me of the core group in Wizard of Oz in their attributes and goals, and there was even an Oz-like character present! So if you think you'd like soft sci-fi Wizard of Oz, this is your book!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Genocide, Death, and Grief
Moderate: Medical content and Confinement
Minor: Panic attacks/disorders
Asexuality, autism-coded main character