In the Lives of Puppets follows Vic, a human living in a world full of robots. His father made him and together with two of the coolest robots around, they lived in the woods in their self made joke. They found happiness together but one day everything takes a turn for the worst. The robots find traces of a human and track down Vic’s home where they take his father. As readers we follow Vic and his trusty robots as they try to get his father back home.

This book was so good. Klune is the master at cozy fantasy and pulling at your heartstrings. This book was tender, full of heart, and amazingly written. I like to say Klune’s books feel like someone holding you while you cry and this one did not disappoint. Do yourself a favor and pick up this book!

I sadly wasn't able to finish reading this book in time, but from what I did I read, I can say this is TJ Klune at his best.
The relationships between the characters are fragile and beautiful, with just the right dabs of sci fi description and social reflection, and I will be eager to finish this read once our library has a copy.

In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune

In the same vein of TJ Klune’s other more recent novels; The House in the Cerulean Sea, and Under the Whispering Door, In the Lives of Puppets is a very heartwarming, cozy fantasy story with loveable characters and some great queer representation. It differentiates itself from the two aforementioned books by following a more traditional quest storyline, in a loose retelling of Pinnochio. Now I’ll be honest, I’m not the most familiar with the story of Pinnochio, I’ve seen the original Disney version technically about 15 years ago but that’s the extent of my knowledge (and I barely remember that). So I can’t judge this book on how good of a retelling it is, so my review is solely based on how it stands as its own work.

In the Lives of Puppets follows Victor ‘Vic’, the son of an inventor named Gio who live in treehouses in the forest with two robots, the loveable yet sadistic Nurse Ratched and the adorable vacuum Rambo. One day while exploring the forest and foraging through the old junk piles they find a new robot in need of repairs named Hap, and their lives are then drastically changed for good. It is a very enjoyable, and as I said before, heartwarming story that I think will be enjoyed by TJ Klune fans and new readers alike. The characters are charming, the romance is sweet, the adventure is fun, and the book altogether will pull on your heartstrings (no pun intended).

In the Lives of Puppets definitely has much higher stakes than the previous two books (these are the only two books of his that I’ve yet to read and also his most popular which is why I am constantly comparing), however I found it surprisingly much slower to read than the others. It was only about 40% through that the actual plot, the quest, began, while I did actually enjoy the low stakes opening of the book, I just thought it went on way longer than it should have. Once the quest did begin, I actually found a lot of it to be very repetitive. Though it was following the Pinnochio story, I wish it had chosen to add some new ideas to it to make it more exciting because the story began to drag a bit for me. It wasn’t until the ending that I felt my attention being completely drawn again. The story became more intriguing by adding more stakes and I found myself not able to put the book down because I needed to find out what was going to happen next.

When it comes to its characters, I really loved them, they were charming and sweet and full of personality and I’m sure anyone else who has read In the Lives of Puppets would agree. Rambo is definitely my favourite, if you’ve seen Adventure Time the character is almost comparable to BMO (who I absolutely love). I do have one thing however, though it is a bit of a spoiler so if you don’t want to know skip this paragraph, although I do think going in this book you will likely guess that this is to come. Okay skip now, the human/robot romance, I’m not sure how I feel about it. I guess Hap is humanistic, but it just felt very weird to me. Maybe it was just me but every time Victor started describing him (in a way that was clear he had a bit of a crush) it was so strange to me, describing his flat wooden chest and stuff. Also, Hap has basically no memories of anything from before he met Vic so while he was actually very old and Vic was an adult it just was uncomfortable. Like I could get on board with a human/ghost relationship in Under the Whispering Door but I don’t know about this one it might be a step too far for me because at least the ghost was also once a human and not even that long ago lol, but if you’ve read this one please let me know what you thought!!

Overall, I enjoyed it for what it was, a heartwarming adventure story, and I think most readers will too, but it didn’t particularly stand out to me and had its issues, it was just a bit disappointing as a big fan of his other books. I’d still give it 4 stars though and definitely recommend checking it out.

This was nothing short of delightful! TJ Klune is now 3 for 3 on the found family o-meter hall of fame and he is now an auto read author for me.

This little family of a human and four robots was everything to me! Getting to know them and getting to see them get to know each other was so heartwarming. They seem so dysfunctional at a glance but they just fit together so well.

This may be a science fiction novel but it was so accessible and cozy and low key a romance???? I was LIVING for the romance. There was a small bit of action, lots of adventure and many robots but so much heart. This story tugged at my heart strings, made me laugh, made me cry, made me think and i am just so happy with the way this book ended.

Thank you Netgalley and Tor for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Oh my PUPPETS. I loved this book so so so much. Rambo and Hap and Nurse Ratched!! TJ Klune has always always done found family really well and this was definitely one of his best. There were so many profound moments that were so beautifully shared and so many moments where I laughed out loud. I finished the book in public and it took everything in me to not cry. Another winner!

This is my very first book by this author and I really enjoyed it. It is a heartwarming book. This book gave me a lot of different emotions. What a roller coaster ride. Definitely worth reading.

Thank you #netgalley for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Something happened to this book. I've read both "The House in the Cerulean Sea" and "Under the Whisper Door" and loved both of them. I was so honored when I was able to get the ARC from Macmillan, and went into it so excited. I know TJ Klune has been getting a lot of bad press recently, but I decided I would try this final book, try to disconnect the author from the work, and then call it quits on his books.

Well, In The Lives of Puppets was a major let down. Nothing in the book grabbed my attention. The characters were boring and flat. I tried multiple times to get into this book, and nothing worked. The whimsy that was in his other works was just not in this one, along with really unlikeable characters. After a few attempts, I knew I just needed to stop reading it. Unfortunately this was my final experience with the author. I hated to leave on such a bad note.

Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan for providing me with a copy of this book for a free review.

Expressing my thoughts on this one is a bit of a challenge because while I did enjoy it, it didn't captivate me to the same extent as it did for many others. The story itself is good, offering a mix of romance and humor set in an incredibly imaginative world. However, I found that the characters never truly connected with me on a deep level.

Vic takes center stage as the main character, the sole human amidst a cast of machines whose original purpose was to hunt down humans. The unconventional family dynamic includes his "father" and his love interest, alongside Nurse Ratched, a restored medical machine, and Rambo, an unexpected addition in the form of a vacuum cleaner. Out of the bunch, Nurse Ratched stood out as the most enjoyable character, as her presence sparked most of the humorous exchanges.

As Vic and his companions venture through the countryside on their way to the City of Electric Dreams, there's an unmistakable Wizard of Oz vibe to their journey. The encounters with various characters pushed the boundaries of my imagination, especially when it came to the enigmatic Blue Fairy. Eventually, the motley group reaches their destination, bringing the story to a satisfying conclusion.

While I did appreciate the elements at play in this imaginative tale, it fell just short of fully captivating me. Nevertheless, the story offers an enjoyable blend of romance, humor, and adventure that will likely resonate with readers seeking a unique and whimsical reading experience.

It should come as no surprise that I loved this book. TJ Klune just has a knack for writing interesting tales with some serious heart. This adorably queer Pinocchio retelling with bits of other sprinkled in pop culture references had me hooked right away and I adored Klune's lovely characters. The snarky wit in his prose is incredibly humorous and his plot moved so incredibly well. I could not put this book down.

Ugh, I want to like Klune's books so much. But I just don't. I finished the Cerulean Sea, but I've barely made it 1/3 into his other works. I do still and will still purchase them for my library because his books are loved by many. Being neurodiverent and queer myself, I just do not like most of his main characters.

A very interesting and engaging read. I wanted to discover the world of T. J. Klune as I've been hearing about his books everywhere! But I went into this book completely blind as I have yet to read his other stories.

In In the Life of Puppets, I especially loved the fact that the characters here are not common in the sense that none of them really fit any stereotypical fantasy or sci-fi figure (except Gio as the heroic father maybe but even him has a little something that makes him real and less of just a character on the page). I think here of Nurse Ratched for example and her cynicism and lack of empathy that always destabilize the reader even after pages to get accustomed to her.

A really, really good book to make sci-fi evolve, knowing how popular T.J. Klune's work is, I know that it is probably already optioned by an amazing publishing house but I would love to work on a text like this one!

I received a complimentary copy of the audiobook for IN THE LIVES OF PUPPETS by T.J. Klune from Macmillan Audio for an honest review. I have adored a few of T.J. Klune’s past books, so was excited to get an advanced copy of this book and the special edition sent by Fairyloot is gorgeous!

IN THE LIVES OF PUPPETS is a scifi fantasy Pinocchio retelling. Giovanni Lawson is an inventor android who broke away from his work to live a quiet life. He has raised a human son Victor in a world without humans. Vic has an adventurous sole and his wanderings have brought other colorful robots into their lives. When Vic finds another android, this one labeled HAP, he unknowingly starts a series of events that will take him far from home to the City of Electric Dreams with his friends.

I really love T.J. Klune’s writing and that definitely holds up in this book. It really made it easy to settle into the story from the beginning. I really loved the found family aspect (literally found in a scrap heap for the most part) of this book and the characters are colorful and a bit weird in the best ways which I’ve come to expect from this author!

I really think that the retelling aspect of the book was well done. It made use of a lot of the significant moments from the original tale, but also made them feel new. This is my favorite kind of retelling where an author really puts a unique spin on things!

Unusual for me, but I think this is one that I actually preferred in print to the audio. Given that the cast of characters are robots, the voices used by the narrator could be a bit much to listen to for extended periods and I didn’t quite find myself wanting to binge this one like I did some of Klune’s prior works.

I really had a great time with this book and look forward to reading more of the author’s backlist soon!

I love everything TJ Klune writes. He has such a way of building compassions and longing in characters that I have not experienced before. This book helps us think about hour humanity and connection between each other. Amazingly beautiful.

I found this delightful. I was immediately sucked in within one chapter. Sometimes it takes me a bit to warm up to a book, get a feel for where the story is going to go, but with this I knew right away I was here for the ride no matter where it ended up.

I've never read about robots and android types and felt like they were so uniquely themselves, but also so human. Maybe reading this around the same time as Murderbot was a perfect choice, and I've definitely found a little theme going.

Our library has already gotten their copy in, and I've enjoyed recommending it to folks. It's only halfway through the year but this is already become one of my favorite reads of 2023.

In the Lives of Puppets: Imagination Tops Repeated Structure
IN THE LIVES OF PUPPETS (2023)

By TJ Klune

Tor Books, 432 pages.

★★★★

In the Lives of Puppets, the forthcoming novel from TJ Klune, delves into one of fantasy’s most intriguing questions: What makes an individual fully human? He comes down on the side of those who doubt that biology is the sole (or even main) determinant. You’ll find echoes of familiar sources in Klune’s book: Pinocchio, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Data (and the Borg) from Star Trek, and Philp Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? from whence Blade Runner movies derived.



Klune takes us to an indeterminate future in which machines have taken over the world. Insofar as the AI Authority knows, Earth’s human contagion has been eradicated. That also renders a lot of machines obsolete, which are decommissioned and scrapped. As you no doubt anticipate, there’s at least one human left. Victor Lawson lives near a salvage yard but deep in the forest with his “father” Gio/Giovanni and his friends Rambo and Nurse Ratched. Their arrangement is, shall we say, unusual. Gio Lawson is an android, a tinkerer, benevolent, loves old jazz, and his fatherhood has nothing to do with sex. He and Victor scour the junkyard for parts for their hidden compound, taking care that Victor doesn’t bleed as even a drop of blood would set off alarms.



Gio is actually a General Innovation Operative, an android inventor/builder that became a renegade with a distinct personality. He does a great job raising Victor, courtesy of the wooden heart animated by a drop of blood. Rambo was once a vacuum cleaner that Gio rebuilt and reprogramed, a Roomba whose lettering wore off. So why not give him a few arms, the ability of speak, a Piglet-like personality, and a love of the musical Top Hat? Ratched was a medical device that used to serve humans: Registered Automation To Care, Heal, Educate, and Drill. She has an empathy protocol, but she prefers to turn it off and drill!



To say this is an unusual grouping, but Victor sees nothing weird about having two machines for friends; you take what you can get when you’re the only homo sapiens. Part One, the Forest” details some of these relationships and introduces one of Vic’s salvage efforts, the grumpy HAP, whom Rambo dubs Hysterically Angry Puppet. HAP is powerful, ominous, and stutters. It’s a good thing his systems were corrupted. Unbeknownst to Victor, the R on his chest has worn off and he’s actually a HARP, a Human Annihilation Response Protocol android like the ones that wiped out humankind. Instead, he becomes Victor’s protector and, we sense, the two are falling in love, after HAP is given the spare heart Vic had built for Gio. (Klune is an icon of gay literature.)



Part Two, “The Journey” occurs when Gio is captured and the others must flee their destroyed refuge. They encounter a strange machine known as The Coachman who, after playing a different role, helps them get inside the City of Electric Dreams, where Gio has probably been taken to be reprogramed. The city is Part Three of the novel and a weird one it is. Gio once told Victor that the Blue Fairy (a “they”) might or might not help if danger arose. First, they must gain entry to a glass pyramid where, legend holds, “unchained” machines follow their electric dreams. It’s not clear whether the Blue Fairy and their helper are benevolent, volatile, or flat-out dangerous, nor does Klune spell out exactly why the Authority allows them to exist. Let’s just say that things inside the pyramid are strange. I could say the same for the entire book, part four of which resolves various dilemmas.



In the midst of this idiosyncratic work Klune raises a few universal questions. What does it mean to be “alive?” What makes a family? What gives purpose to existence? Where, if at all, do we place the parameters of desire? Shades of the Tin Woodsman of the Oz, Klune also asks us whether poets and ancient philosophers were right to locate emotion and memory in the heart rather than the brain.



I won’t pretend this novel will light up every reader’s circuits. I enjoyed it quite a bit because it’s so odd. I admit, though, that Klune is guilty of repeating stories he has previously told and has merely dressed this one in metal clothes. The overarching moral is that a vivid imagination serves authors and characters equally well.



Rob Weir

TJ Klune has such a refreshingly unique humor and quality to his writing. I know his books will always deliver a heartwarming message, quirky, lovable, queer characters, and a story that feels both new and nostalgically comforting. In the Lives of Puppets delivered on the nostalgia with reminders of The Wizard of Oz, Pinocchio, and Star Wars with Nurse Ratched and Rambo's (charmingly evil) C3PO and R2D2 dynamic. But the story was also a wholly original sci-fi quest.

My favorite element was Nurse Ratched's blunt, dry, dark humor. My love for her character made up about 80% of my virtual marginalia. It felt oddly relatable how she engaged and disengaged empathy protocol... turn on the nice switch, and now here's how I really feel! It made for great comedy.

I also loved how it not-so-subtly but very inventively represented the gender spectrum, with robots being referred to as both it and him, and others, they. I have similar praise for it taking on upbringing, change, and who we are at our core. Using robots to say we aren't preprogrammed, or can go against our programming to be who we want, and that we're all unique was a beautiful idea. I loved the inclusion of HAP vs evil HARP, and Gio's backstory vs. the "man" he grew to be. It was revealing to see the human and the monster in the machine. It made you question your beliefs when you learned that this character you liked had this horrific past. I thought its message around this was courageous, bold and incredibly relevant in a world where many judge others for their "irredeemable" actions and "irreversible" qualities. It shouted that we are more than our past, more than we are taught to be, and that we should be accepting and forgiving of those who choose to change. "Hidden behind a layer of skin and metal, the gears of his heart turned and turned"... On the surface we may be soft and vulnerable like skin, or hard like metal, but inside we are both hard (resilient!) like machine gears but softly, delicately, human like a heart. It's so beautiful. There is always more beneath the surface with us complex humans.

It took about 1/3 of the way into the book to feel a sort of momentum and like the book was more than its humor. Once Gio was captured and Victor got the message telling us the truth about them, that's when I started to feel more invested in the story. Ultimately, I enjoyed the themes, humor, and characters more than the story itself, which is hard to explain because I typically enjoy a good quest story. But it's clear that characters, humor, and themes are where Klune thrives. Though this is the last in his unofficial Kindness Trilogy, I will continue to read whatever he writes.

Yikes, it's taken me forever to review this book. Whoopsies.

This ode to <I>Pinocchio</I> is about a human boy raised by robots, until one day everything changes and the life he once knew is upended.

I really enjoyed Klune's previous two books, but this one was not as great for me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it. The robots were hilarious and I loved our MC. The quest itself was interesting. But, it didn't keep my interest as well and lacked the emotional punch for some reason. I think it has a lot more to do with me than the book, as I really am not the biggest <I>Pinocchio</I> fan.

I have heard that this is closer to Klune's earlier writings, so if you've been a fan longer than me, you'll probably like this more!

Thank you to Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

I love this book so much. It is a re-telling of Pinocchio, a story I had never been especially fond of, but this book is brilliant. I loved all the characters, robots and human alike. The plot moves quickly and I enjoyed traveling with the characters. The setting could be described as dystopian, but it is, at its heart, a hopeful book.

I loved loved loved The House in the Cerulean Sea, so I might have set this book up with too much expectation because it fell a little flat for me in some places. Nurse Rachet lead the book in my opinion and was my favorite character by far. The setting and plot got a little weird for me and was hard to follow/ stay engaged. But the banter, Nurse Rachet, Rambo (reminded me of WALL-E), and the love that's felt throughout the pages was where the stars came from for me.

3.5 stars

While Rambo & Nurse Rachet really MADE this book, I have to say this was my least favorite of TJ's thus far. Things got a little weird in the City of Electric Dreams, I wasn't overly invested in the plot, and nothing surprised me. That said, the banter was really hilarious and I highly recommend the audiobook production of this one.

LGBTQ+ rep: Asexual main character