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

DNFd around 33%

I hated this book. I was bored from the very beginning and unfortunately it didn't get any better for me. It was just dragging without going anywhere.

"Hope grew, thorny, painful hope only found in those who dared to believe in impossible things. It tore at him, but he refused to let it go."

This is the third book by TJ Klune I have read, and once again I really enjoyed it. This book has story elements similar to Pinocchio and Frankenstein, I'd also throw in a Matrix element as well. I don't want to go into spoilers, but I do find all the characters unique and interesting to evaluate. I'm not the expert, but I do think there is something to be said about different disabilities represented by the robotic characters. Hap has a stutter, Nurse Ratched almost seems to have a sort of Asperger's, and Gio eventually exhibits what can be compared to dementia that an Alzheimer's patient may experience.

In this world we live in where Ai get more and more intelligent, I always wonder when I'll fail the Turing Test. Although I guess it's more that the machine would pass it. Nurse Ratched is my favorite character, she's just so great.

If this book has changed my life in at least once significant way, it's that I've renamed my rumba 'Rambo' and plan to attach soldering arms to him (we had already put eyes on our rumba after we got it) I even find myself talking to it nicer, as though it's listening to me. I was watching WALL-E with my daughter yesterday and just kept thinking about how much he reminded me of Rambo, though instead of Top Hat we get Hello, Dolly!

"And above all else be brave!"

TJ Klune will always be an author I pick up, and I can't wait to see what comes next.

Thank you NetGalley and Tor Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review!

This is not my favorite TJ Klune. Its a Pinocchio inspired story about androids taking over the planet but sweet and wholesome. Our characters live in the woods as a found family. Victor, the human child of the Android Gio and two robots victor has repaired over the years. A nurse bot and a vacuum.

There is queer representation, our MC is ace.

This is the kind of story you read slowly over a few days absorbing all the cuddly feels. Don't read it for a readathon like I did

Victor Lawson is a human man on a land full of robots. His father, Giovanni, a robot himself, moved to the forest to be away from the big city, and then Victor came along. As Victor grew, he stated combing through the local scrap yard to find new things to tinker with. There, he found Nurse Ratched (yes, really. She's a medical droid!) and a little vacuum droid he names Rambo... And then they find Hap. And everything begins to fall apart. Robots come and take Gio away, and Nurse Ratched, Rambo, and Hap go after Gio to bring him home.

Okay, so I love Disney/fairytale connections as much as the next girl, but the ties here to Pinocchio (the original by Carlo Collodi) are super faint, until they're aggressively obvious. And frankly, I'm not a "journey book" person. This was... fine. I didn't love it like I did Under the Whispering Door. I had been looking forward to this... until I no longer did. I had to make the NetGalley app read to me so that I actually finished it, and that's less than ideal.

I appreciate the character building. I can see the connections that were trying to be made between the robots and Pinocchio. I just... didn't love it. Which is disappointing. I'm sure there are others that will love it, though.

I received an Advanced Reader Copy via NetGalley in return for sharing my thoughts on this book. Thanks to the author and publisher for this opportunity!

TJ Klune never fails to serve quirky, loveable characters. A Pinocchio retelling in a world of robots where the "real boy", is, well... a real boy. Found family stories always pull at my heartstrings and this book was no different!

Also, I just really enjoyed all the sci-fi robot references. Like naming a city after Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? might be a bit niche, but it's those little details that are fun to pick out!

Gio the android, who was created to invent lives in the woods with his adopted Human son Victor. They live in a house built into the trees along with two robots that Victor salvaged from the scrap yards. Nurse Ratched, a sociopathic sarcastic robot that may be slightly crazy enough to do more harm than good if not kept on a tight leash, and Rambo and adorable anxiety ridden clueless vacuum. Victor, Rambo and Nurse Ratched frequently wander the scrap yards in search of salvageable goods that they can use. The trio stumble across an Android that is still functioning who they name HAP but in the process Victor cuts his hand. Victor returns with HAP to his workshop where he restores the new robot to working order. Gio finds what Victor has done and events are set in motion that will change all of their secluded lives.

Victor's blood that he left in the scrap yard from when he cut his hand is tracked back to their secular home by a group of robots. Gio is kidnapped by the group of robots and taken to the city of electric dreams. Victor, HAP, Nurse Ratched and Rambo go after him on a rescue mission, but Victor quickly learns that the world he was told of doesn't really exist.

I really loved this book, the characters were very rich and well rounded. The interaction between Victor and the androids is delightfully comedic and essentially made the book. Nurse Ratched is perhaps my favourite due to her Sarcastic nature and I loved how she 'bounced off' the character Rambo. I adored how the author included Asexual representation in the book, and it was well done! It really felt like the author had a good understanding of what Asexual's feel and can experience, and it is the first time I’ve ever seen this represented in a Main character. The interaction between Victor and Hap was very sweet and I loved it but it really didn’t feel like a 'gay' love story as I didn’t feel that Gender actually played a role in the story at all.

If you want a perfect happy ending then this book is not for you! The ending whilst it is rounded off does not leave one feeling 'warm and fuzzy', nor does it leave you with a big open end. The ending is a great representation of life itself and doesn’t Skirt over some of the harsher points. I would Highly recommend this book, and gives me very much House in the Cerulean sea vibes, that made me fall in love with this author to begin with.

I received an e-ARC for one of my most anticipated reads of 2023 and I'm so happy to say that I loved it!! This book follows Victor, a human, and his family of robots who live in the forest. It's a queer retelling of The Adventures of Pinocchio and it will defintily make you cry, laugh, and smile just like T) Klune's other books.

3 Stars

There is no doubt that Tj Klune is a talented author. His books have filled me with every single emotion. Ranging from happiness to sad in a single chapter. But In the Lives of Puppets, this one didn't do it for me. There was something missing from it. And I cannot pin point exactly what it was.

The story itself was great, human boy surrounded by robots is a great story. The robots were honestly my favorite aspect. Nurse Ratched and Rambo were delightful and had me laughing every time they talked. Even Hap grew on me with his grumpy self. But these characters just felt like remnants of already existing Klune characters. The humor felt very much like the Extraordinaries. The emotional parts felt like Under the Whispering Door, and the joyous parts felt like Cerulean Sea. It just felt like one giant mashup of all his work.

So I think if I had read this book first, I would have loved it. But since I have read all the others, it just felt like reading the same book again. And while I am no opposed to rereading books, I didn't sign up for that with Puppets. I was hoping for something a little different this time around.

The saving grace of this book was the found family aspect. Which Klune includes in all his books and I am glad he does. He does it very well. Nothing tops a beautiful found family coming together in the end for me.

While I didn't love this book, I know many people out there will. Klune knows how to tell a great story.

I walked into this book, not entirely knowing what to expect. I knew the cover was beautiful, that it was written by TJ Klune so, of course, I was going to read it. I kind of knew that it was being marketed as a Pinnochio retelling. I certainly thought the book would involve more puppets, in the traditional sense. Instead, I got a bunch of robots! Which is not a bad thing at all.

I fell in love Gio from the start and Vic came shortly after. Nurse Ratched holds a special place in my heart. She is hilarious and super helpful, just what Vic needs at all times, even if she’s quite embarrassing with regards to his human processes like going to the bathroom, or experiencing sexual attraction. I was getting serious Wall-E vibes from Rambo, except Rambo’s voice is stronger and he’s more outspoken, the robot embodiment of ADHD. This little family Gio has assembled, with Vic finding the two bots, is perfection from the start. I can understand why Vic might want a little more, why he pushes at boundaries and wants to explore beyond his little tree house (aka gigantic amazing tree house). He’s a very curious and intelligent man who is discovering what it means to be human in a world where he’s probably the last of the human race. HAP also deserves special mention. Not only is his redesign super cool (wood melded with metal!), he overcomes his programming and builds himself from the ground up, with Vic’s help, as well as the other bots.

The story was very emotional and I enjoyed it very much. It felt like a bedtime snack for me, a nice quiet enjoyment at the end of a long day. It features Vic, who is asexual, and is overall a very cozy read that focuses on hope for humanity, even after humanity has been eradicated from the planet. It’s about found family and quirky robots and how, even when all seems lost, you can still reclaim at least a little of what was gone. And that has to be enough because you have to keep going even if it’s not going to be what it was before. And that’s okay. Things change and that’s okay.

TJ Klune continues to break my heart with found families and warm fuzzy feelings. I was initially nervous going into this because science fiction isn't my preferred genre, but TJ Klune is a favorite of mine, so I had all the faith in the world he would pull me into his vision. He crafts characters with such care and love that they could be in any setting, in any genre and I would be hooked.

This book was a delight from the beginning to the end. A beautiful self discovery story with layers of redemption and forgiveness.
As in all TJ Klune’s books, the characters are the quirkiest. We’ve got Nurse Ratchet, and an anxiety filled Roomba called Rambo.
Queer retelling of Pinocchio but with some Wizard of Oz vibes throughout.