As a mega fan of TJ Klune’s two other recent works, this one is a departure, and thus for me, it was a bit disappointing, although the book itself was enjoyable. While the diverse characters had the author’s signature oddball charm, the plot was lacking the *magic* i have come to expect from this author.

Victor lives with his father and robot companions in the heart of a secluded forest in a post-human world, where robots (with varying degrees of ai) have taken over. when victor uses his human blood, which allows robots to move beyond their programming and ai, to restore a humanoid robot, it brings his father’s past crashing into the present. his father is abducted and the family goes on an adventure to find and rescue him, not knowing if he will be the same man they know and love.

I enjoyed the first half of this book much more than the latter half. Puzzling out the politics of the world the characters were living in and getting to experience the quirky robot characters the author created was a closer match to my expectations for this book. There was nothing much going on, but that is what I expected, so it felt right in the moment to have chapters with limited plot advancement. It gave the characters space to shine. I appreciated the grumpy-sunshine vibe between Victor and Hap, and the father-son dynamic between Victor and Gio was really heartwarming. The second half of the book however, really dragged for me--ironic since it was the “adventure-y, heist part--but the sequence of events felt formulaic, like the author was just checking the boxes for the source material. This rushed parade of events definitely took away from the reading experience, for me.

Overall, this was a good read, and will resonate with readers who are interested in reading something darker from TJK. He’s done something different with this book, leaning sci/fi as opposed to speculative fiction, and embracing a Pinocchio/Wizard of Oz retelling.

I personally love any dystopian world, but TJ Klune’s “IN THE LIVES OF PUPPETS” takes the cake. In a queer retelling of PINOCCHIO, Klune created characters that will forever stick with me in my heart, in what I believe to be his best work yet. If you’re a sucker for character development and banter that makes you smile, then this work is for you.

In a world that’s fully ran by androids and machines, hides one last human survivor. I refuse to say anymore, because I truly believe that the rest of the story’s details deserves to be uncovered by the reader, but I happily gave it 5 stars. It will remain a book that will stick with me. I never thought I’d fall in love with a Hysterically Angry Puppet, an anxiety ridden roomba, and a sadistic Nurse machine. This sci-fi fantasy romance made me giggle, smile, hunch over in heartache, and kick my feet. It’s a wholesome, cozy read with asexual representation and I recommend it to anyone who loves memorable world building and genuine characters.

I definitely picked up some WIZARD OF OZ vibes as well, and I cannot wait for this book to be published. “IN THE LIVES OF PUPPETS” comes out April 25, 2023. you can preorder now, or wait to snag it off the shelves!! I have strong confidence that this one will become a well known best-seller. thank you so much to TOR books and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

EMOJI SUMMARY:
🦋🤖🧹🫀🌲🧬🦾🕊️

I was all over the place with feelings about this book 😂.

TJ Klune does a lot really well in this book. The found family piece is here, which I always love. Great writing, natural dialogue, humor. I can always count on TJ Klune for laugh out loud humor. I thought the storyline was interesting, with a lot of hints to the Pinocchio story. I really loved Victor and Hap and watching that friendship evolve.

There were also a couple things that stuck out to me while I was reading.
- The banter between Nurse and Rambo was funny, but sometimes it was TOO much. A piece would carry on for too long and you’d lose your place in a scene.
- With Nurse, there was this whole thing around words showing up on her screen after she said something, and it WAS funny, but I feel like that was something more for visual, like a movie or TV? Again, it just sort of made these really funny moments go on for too long and the sentences were a little awkward to read.
- Sometimes the Pinocchio references in terms of the puppets felt like trying a little too hard to connect. Just in the dialogue in a few different areas.

Overall, once I got comfortable in the story, I did enjoy reading the novel. I always have a good time reading Klune’s books, I think this one just felt more sci-fi-ish to me than fantasy, with all the robots and machines? Nothing wrong with that at all. Just different! I think if you enjoyed House in the Cerulean Sea, and Under the Whispering Door, you’ll love this one as well.

Thank you TJ Klune, Netgalley, and Tor Publishing Group for an eARC of ‘In the Lives of Puppets’! Release date 4/25

TJ has given us yet another book that I think is going to change and save lives. This story was full of adventure and challenges your views on humanity. I found myself feeling fragile, but also under fully complicated. I laughed so hard flipping through these pages and also felt like my heart was going to beat out my chest. The plot is a resemblance to Pinocchio (also with some Wizard of Oz vibes) about a man & his son, love & memory, life & differences. TJ writes the found family trope like nobody else and I’ve somehow grown attached to a family of robots. Rambo, Hap, Vic, Gio, and Nurse Ratched will be with me for a long time to come. I realize none of this will make much sense until you read this book. So I hope you read this book. Bring your tissues.

I would like to thank Tor Publishing Group for providing a digital copy of this novel via NetGalley. In the Lives of Puppets is a reinvention of The Adventures of Pinocchio. Gio, robot, is the maker. His son Vic is a human. When Vic finds an Android labeled HAP, this sets off a series of events that finds Gio kidnapped and Vic on a journey to find him. Meanwhile accompanying him on his journey are two robots Rambo and nurse Ratchet. The story delves deeply into themes of sexual identity, family, and what it means to be alive. It's both a tribute to Pinocchio and its own unique story. I recommend it.

Yet another brilliant work from TJ Klune, and another of his work to make me sob! In the lives of Puppets is an endearing story filled with robots you can't help but love. I especially loved Rambo, the anxious vacuum. My favorite part of this story was the theme of forgiveness and acceptance, and the power of memories. These characters felt so human; this story had so much heart. With the balance of humor and heart, this was such a great read!

Thank you netgalley for the arc!

THANK YOU, thank you, thank you so much to Net Galley & TOR publishing for the eARC of TJ Klune's upcoming release. I requested this never thinking I would get an ARC of this because of his recent popularity and let me tell you, my jaw hit the floor when I got my approval email.

I plan to give this book a 4.5 star, I really enjoyed this book, it was so sweet and cozy through the majority of the book, but the ending really did it for me. It was bittersweet and had me in tears for sweet Vic and the journey he goes through. Nurse Ratched is hilarious, and Rambo is the vacuum version of a 6 year old.

No one can write a story with heart the way T.J. Klune can.

In the Lives of Puppets is another adventurous, emotional tale from the author of The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door. While this book doesn't top either of those for me, it is still a solid read for spring, and it is utterly unique. I recommend it for readers who enjoy light fantasy and stories with found families.

Once again TJ Klune creates a WINNER!! In the lives of puppets is a bit brave little toaster meets the Wizard of Oz-ish. It is set in a world in which AI is in control and humans are extinct having been hunted and killed by robots.
A stunning and heartfelt read. Highly recommended

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really loved The House in the Cerulean Sea and I thought Under the Whispering Door was charming, but I couldn't get into In the Lives of Puppets. I was also struggling to vibe with the romance, which I normally find to be one of TJK's strengths.

Ah well, on to the next.

Don't hate me, but I thought this was fine?
*
This was cute, and like other TJ Klune books has charming and very unique characters, and some funny banter. The story felt a bit like The Wizard of Oz with some very obvious Pinocchio imagery, told in a very quirky way. It has a great message of self-discovery, breaking away from expectations, and the value that every person (or in this case being, given that most of them are machines) has.
*
The ending was cute, but I did not find the book overall as endearing as the others of his I've read. The dialogue was funny at times, but also just incredibly cheesy, and often felt like a kid's book. (Except for the very frequent references to sex, and even a robot brothel.) Not bad, just in my opinion, not as charming and touching as his other books have been.

Am I crying? Am I laughing? Am I truly delighted? Yes, Yes & Yes.

T. J. Klune breathes life into a world that is filled with robots and one human. ( I recommend reading the synopsis, it does a much bette job of describing this book than I can ) In The Lives of Puppets was unexpected. I honestly did not think robots could be so entertaining, lovely and full of feeling. Most of the characters were robots that felt very close to human. Each robot was an odd ball fitting perfectly into the story. The one human, Vic, had enough heart for a whole world. He was so interesting to read about and picture as a real man in a world alone.

Overall this book was interesting with a special kind of quirky-ness that I very much enjoyed.

A big thank you to NetGalley and TOR for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was not my favorite of TJ Klune's books but let's give credit where credit is due. His brain is a magical place and I've never had a daydream half as vivid as all of the ideas he's probably turned away. And a book with an asexual main character is being traditionally published with special editions at major retailers. Accomplishments on accomplishments.

Now, I've read a bunch of his backlist and I'm going to set this one a little to the side of Tales From Verania on the how manic the book feels. Rambo was cute but man he almost got everyone killed more than once. I liked the nods to other books that TJ has written that were in this book.

The tone in the end was what I wish the entire book had. The ending was everything I needed from the book. I wish we had an epilogue just from the distance showing that everything is ok now as they build their home. I didn't feel like anyone was in the condition to end the book where it did.

Thank you to Tor and Netgalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are my own.

The Coachman- "Humans were foolish. Careless. Cruel. But only a few. Most were full of light." (The Lives of Puppets).

I found this book absolutely enchanting. Part Pinocchio, part Frankenstein, part Wizard of Oz, Klune beautifully writes a fairy tale about a time when humans were extinct and the world was run by machines. It is a story about creation and destruction, friendship, and, most importantly, a story about accepting who you are and discovering your purpose for existing.

I wasn't sure what I was going to think about this one, but I ended up loving it! The characters were incredible (I think Rambo was my favorite-so innocent). The journey did get a little tiresome in the middle, but I was glad for the ending. A different take, but a great message.

I adored TJ Klunes Under the whispering door and House in the cerulean sea, so when I got an e arc for this I was so excited. Unfortunately Im dnfing at 54%. Klune includes his classic quirky fun characters in this book, some I adore and some are a little to much and are annoying. I have no motivation to want to continue this book, as a reader we see where the story is likely going but its taking so long to get anywhere. This book has turned me off of reading anything robot related for a while! The description and visualization is beautiful. The creativeness of the story is amazing. Its something that if you enjoy this book, it would stand out in your mind and not be confused with any other book.

This heart clutching novel is simply FANTASTIC! The love they find in their band of misfits was so endearing and heart warming (insert heart clutching again!).

In the middle of woods, stands a home where Giovanni Lawson raises his son Vic in complete isolation of the world. The company they keep includes a former decommissioned robotic nurse and an adorable rumba vacuum. Nurse Ratchet's sarcastic words, drill wanting ways are absolutely hilarious and Rambo's joy with the world is infectious. Vic, is a curious human and bit lonely, finds daily pleasure building and repairing robots in his father's lab.

One day he finds decommissioned robot, and brings him back to life. Hap's (Hysterically Angry Puppet) memories are wiped as to why he was originally brought forth in the world until the day similar robots land at the door to Vic's home stealing his father, and destroying everything. Hap's dark past haunts his current state, and he wants to right the wrongs with the help of his friends.

Together they set out on a journey to the City of Electronic Dreams to rescue Gio. They must restore hearts to bring their family back together. And, Vic must also confront his feeling for Hap.

In the Lives of Puppets is a romance full of hope and humor. This adventure is perfection.

Thank you Tor Publishing Group for the complimentary copy.

I heard such great opinions about this author and his books, that I knew I had to read something by him. This one, sadly, isn´t the greatest. And certainly NOT FOR KIDS !!!
The beginning is intriguing, surprising, and engaging. There´s a boy who lives in a forest, close to a scrap yard, where he isn´t supposed to be going because it´s dangerous. He has two friends one is a Nurse, a robot, and the other is Rambo the vacuum cleaner, also a robot. The boys' father is... an android. If that doesn´t sound interesting then I don´t know what does.
Unfortunately, after such a great beginning the story just drags on and on. Reading this made sooooo tired (yawn, yawn). The book is filled with dialogues, which are funny and easy to read, but not throughout 400+ pages! It´s too much.
On top of that, you can find some weird scenes referring to sex, very queer, and meant to be funny, but they aren´t. Sex equals insertion. Seriously? Now, I don´t mind scenes where is sex, sex talk, queer content, etc, BUT it has to have its purpose. Here it felt so odd, so out of place I really had wtf moments. It´s like watching a cozy rom-com and suddenly there´s this advert flashing on your screen about a new cleaning spray. Just no.
Overall I had such high hopes for this book, but unfortunately, it turned out to be a Smart instead of BMW. Still great, but it's not what I expected.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Publishing Group for providing a complementary ARC of this in exchange for my honest review!

I'm going to be honest here, I am not as enamored with TJ Klune's writing as so many others seem to be. Their books are always fine, but I find the sentimentality in them to be a little cloying, and the characters to be very black and white. This was no exception.

A very loose retelling of <i>The Adventures of Pinocchio</i>, (with what felt like considerably more influence from <i>The Wizard of Oz</i>), <i>In the Lives of Puppets</i> tells the story of a human man, Victor, his father (an inventor robot named Gio), his two best friends (a nurse robot called Nurse Ratched and a vacuum robot called Rambo). Vic, Nurse Ratched and Rambo discover a decommissioned android (Hap) in the scrap yards one day and decide to repair it, only for their decision to backfire when the Authority gets summoned and Gio is taken away after having his memory wiped. The remainder of the book is the adventures of the three robots and Victor's journey to the City of Electric Dreams to rescue Gio and bring him home.

The pacing of this book was all over the place. I kept waiting for the story to pick up and become "unputdownable" (which happened to me with <i>The House in the Cerulean Sea</i>), but the plot just kind of kept plodding along. I finally forced myself to just sit down and power through the rest of it when I had 40% left (after spending more than a month trying to read it), but it never fully clicked with me. There were a couple of chapters towards the end where things picked up a bit, but then the denouement continued to drag on longer than it needed to. I also thought that the ending could have done more to look at the consequences of what the team did during the climax on the whole City of Electric Dreams (it was uhhh kind of a massive choice), but I understand that the focus throughout was this little family that they had built, so the ending was just focused on those five again.

The characters were fine, but they definitely took some getting used to. I liked Gio and I liked Vic, but I found Nurse Ratched and Rambo to be incredibly annoying throughout. Hap was kind of a non-entity personality-wise, but the reader is clearly supposed to be very invested in him.

One nit-picky point that kept pulling me out of the world building: Victor is a 21-year old who was raised by robots in the woods and has literally never met another human being in his life. He identifies as asexual, which is repeated ad nauseam throughout the book. I am all for increased Ace representation, I think it often gets overlooked on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum, and I think it's great to have a protagonist who identifies as such, but I think it was a definite choice to set that protagonist in a world where literally every other sentient being he comes into contact with is literally a robot. Especially considering the fact that asexual people are often (insultingly) described as robots who have no feelings. Vic clearly has a lot of very human feelings, and that is the catalyst to many many plot points in the book. And obviously romantic attraction is different from sexual attraction, but I found his romance with Hap to be awkwardly written and not particularly compelling.

There is also a weird robot brothel (?) at one point (run by the Blue Fairy), and several of the robots in those scenes allude to having sexual desires, which I found to be a very confusing choice considering they were, again, robots. Nurse Ratched also frequently hits on other robots and is very frank in her discussion of sexuality, but I took that more as just a quirk of her personality than anything else.

I'm not sure why this relied so heavily on Pinocchio imagery. It wasn't really a Pinocchio story in my mind, and the little Pinocchio details that were included (the Blue Fairy, the Cat and Fox, the "Angry Dogfish"/whale) all just felt like they were purely there to remind you that this was a Pinocchio story! They could have literally been called anything and it wouldn't have changed the story. The Cat and Fox especially I kept waiting to find out the significance of, but it never came.

Overall this wasn't a bad read. I feel like a lot of this review is just criticism, but I didn't dislike the book. It had moments that I thought were lovely, and I can absolutely see why people are really enjoying it. To me though it just felt incomplete and I was left disappointed in what could have been. I'm giving it 3 stars because that's as close to average as I can get with this rating system. It wasn't good it wasn't bad, it just was. I had a lot of the same issues with <i>The House in the Cerulean Sea</i>, so maybe TJ Klune just isn't for me.

TJ Klune does it AGAIN!!

A beautiful story where Pinocchio meets Jim Henson’s Labyrinth meets The Wizard of Oz.

The worlds TJ creates are utterly magical and the characters are insanely lovable and unforgettable. From the prologue to the final paragraph I was mesmerized by how worlds, ripped with emotion.

I can say reading TJ Klune is amazing, but LISTENING is an entirely elevated experience. Especially when narrated by Daniel Henning. This is a story worth reading and going back to listen to the audiobook version as well.

If by the end of the book you don’t want to be best friends with Nurse Ratched and Rambo, you are missing out. Nurse Ratched had me laughing out loud while Rambo just said all the correct things to make you want to hug him. I adored these two characters.

I can’t say enough good things! A must read.

Huge thank you to Tor Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC.