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

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In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune

46 reviews

hfleur's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny 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

4.0

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starsnstitchin's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-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? It's complicated

2.5

This book was different than his other books, and had more (for lack of ability to think of a more clear word choice) "adult content," talking about genitals, pooping, and sex more than expected (and more than necessary or comfortable). The world building didn't make sense in some parts, which made it hard to get immersed in the story. It's painfully clear that the ace character was written from the perspective of a non-ace author. It's not the worst rep I've read, but it didn't feel like an actually ace character. The whole book was a bit of a let down, and the ending feels a bit loose and lacks a lot of desired closure, with some story elements that had been built up left hanging and anticlimatically unaddressed. It felt like the story was building up around something, but the something never arrived or got explained. The acknowledgements at the end by the author sounded very bitter, but made me wonder if the slightly out of tune feel to the book as well as the loose ending was because there's supposed to be something more to the book than we're given. Not his best work, but it did make me laugh at times, and it was enjoyable in parts.

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izzybell's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense 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

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dancingprince's review against another edition

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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.

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therainbowshelf's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious reflective tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

I rather enjoyed this ridiculous book. It's a fun, imaginative sci-fi that rifs on Pinocchio as we follow a human and his robot found-family on a quest to rescue his father and uncover hard truths about their world along the way. I also always enjoy finding ace mcs and neurodiverse mcs. Highly recommend giving the audiobook a listen as well. The narrator does an excellent job.

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keya_caivalur's review

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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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kaiyakaiyo's review against another edition

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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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sarahmayerwriter's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense 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

5.0

I decided to read In The Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune because the summary sounded so odd. It was whimsical and different, so unlike anything I had read before. I hadn’t known it was a Pinocchio retelling at first. In fact, as I read, I thought it might be a Frankenstein retelling. I still stand by that, at least a little bit. I’ll get back to the Pinocchio retelling piece a little later in my review.

I’m going to tell you what I will be telling everyone from now on- if you read the summary and thought this book may not be for you, I encourage you to read it anyway. I say this not because the summary didn’t immediately sell me on it (it did) but I have heard comments like this surrounding the book. Not only did I laugh more than I ever have while reading a book (Nurse Ratched and Rambo’s dialogue had me crying from so much laughter), I connected to these characters immediately.

Without giving too much away, Victor lives with his father, Gio, and his friends Nurse Ratched and Rambo out in the forest. He likes to collect bits and pieces of scrap to build more or improve on the machines and things they have around their treehouse home (take a second to read that again. Yes, a TREEHOUSE HOME). The robots around him are very human in their personalities even though two of them look nothing like us. Nurse Ratched and Rambo can succumb to their original programming at times, which provides for even more funny and heartfelt moments. We’re introduced to a particularly complex android, Hap, that gives wonderful insight into choice and what it means to be human.

A common theme throughout the book is battling loneliness and, linked to that, finding where one fits in the world. Remember what I said about connecting to these characters immediately? I think that’s why. Almost all of us have experienced or are experiencing those feelings. Klune made robots more open to their emotions than almost any human I’ve ever met, and tied them into the beautiful package that is this book.

Hap and Gio are both complicated characters, having pasts that don’t quite align with who they truly are. It begs the question, can we change? Can we improve the future despite our past as a species? An interesting thought.

Regarding the Pinnochio telling, I have only one major critique. I didn’t think it was necessary. This story could have easily stood on its own without any reference to Pinnochio. At times it felt forced, not quite melding into the world, in my opinion. This clearly did not take away from my experience as this is honestly one of the best books I’ve ever read, but it didn’t necessarily add.

I won’t say any more, for fear of spoiling, but just know that the range of emotions I felt while reading this book are unparalleled. I truly did laugh, and cry, and gasp and feel so incredibly happy I was able to read this book. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

A Few Favorite Quotes:

“‘What if I wish for impossible things?’

‘Then you’re doing it right. It always seems impossible when you first start.’”

“Words were a weapon, he knew, one that had taken him a long time to wield. But he was different than he’d been before. He wasn’t that boy. He’d found his voice. This machine– this man– had given it to him.”

“‘Something to it, I think. Maybe I was meant to find you. Before and now.’”

“In his secret heart, hope had flickered like a dying flame.”

“‘My feet hurt,’ Rambo said.

‘You do not have feet.’

‘Oh. Well if I did, they would hurt.’”

“He felt it, then, something foreign, sticky, all-consuming. Its tendrils whipped up around him, pulling him down, down, and as he gasped for air, he recognized it for what it was though he’d never experienced it before in his life. A word flitted through the static as if stuck to the wing of a butterfly. Grief. This was grief.”

I could quote almost the entire book, so I’ll make myself stop there!

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chaos_and_chapters's review

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lighthearted relaxing sad 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

3.5

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cde10's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful tense slow-paced

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

2.75

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