A review by corinth113
In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune

5.0

Loved this book. Easy to read, engrossing, made me laugh, and would make for a really good discussion on what it means to be human. A sci-fi retelling of Pinocchio, this did a great job alluding to references from the original while being its own thing, and it also retains the darker atmosphere from the original story but in elements you don’t always expect (like the Blue Fairy). I also really loved the way the author takes what we define as human or robotic traits (love, malfunction, sociopathy, PTSD, and shock) and turns them on their heads to show us we could each have elements of both. At the end of the day, it’s a lovely adaptation that still causes us to ask, not what it means to be human, but what it means to be “real.”