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.

Well my heart is both happy and full not only because I love TJ Klune but also because I love robots. Androids, AI with feelings, give it all to me in any form. Found family of robots? Yes. I'm going to put this on an endcap with Becky Chambers, Travis Baldree, and Sosuke Natsukawa. Can't wait to hand sell this book!

In the Lives of Puppets follows a world where machines have taken over. A man who is not a man builds a giant sprawling up through the trees. Gio is lonely in his creation; until one day a child appears in his life.
What a cozy read, evemwhen the majority of the book follows machines. The book has a found family element and that is meant literally. My favorite character was Rambo, because of how innocent yet fearless when it came to Victor.
The criticism I have for this book is pacing. The first 35% was world building and character development. The next 60% was their adventure to get to the City of Electric Dreams and the Blue Fairy. The conclusion was just snipets of their lives after the climax. The stakes didn't feel that high even though they should have.
Another thing I likes about 'In the Lives of Puppets' was surprisingly sex-positive it was. It wasn't a major plot point, but definitely part of the conversation.

Thankyou Netgalley and Tor for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.25 Stars

I loved House in the Cerulean Sea especially kids characters and dialogues. Secondary characters in this book reminded me of those kids. So it started strong for me. I loved Nurse Ratched and Rambo. They gave comedic relief and added heart to the story. Their banter carried the book for me. Main character Vic is bland. More so after introducing Hap to the story. I didn't care for the romance. But I still enjoyed the ride because I loved the themes of friendship and free will. However, it was too on the face sometimes especially in the dialogue between Vic and Hap. Those themes were beautifully done with Nurse Ratched and Rambo. My biggest negative in this book is with the last part. We already know what happens. I wish it was done in 2 pages instead of dragging for 20 pages. It reduced my rating from 4 to 3.25 stars.

I am incredibly envious of every reader who is yet to experience this book for the first time. TJ Klune has this almost magical ability to transport you into the imaginary world of his creation and once you find yourself there a part of that world will remain with you forever. Or maybe that's just the effect his stories have on me?

Inspired by Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio, In the Lives of Puppets is an adventure set in a future world in which machines have taken control and humans are no longer in the driver seat. Populated by characters who by the last page do not feel like a work of fiction, this story not only entertains and plays with your heart strings but also revolves around a lot of deep questions and themes - What makes us human? What makes a family? Who decides what is normal? What are the lengths we'd go to for family and for love?

This story had me cycling through so many emotions. I read quite a bit of it on my daily commute to work. Did I make a spectacle of myself by crying in public? Laughing out loud? You better believe it. Banter between anxiety ridden little vacuum called Rambo and no-nonsense potentially psychopathic machine Nurse Ratched (who also happens to be my favorite character) had me giggling on numerous occasions.

I tend to rate books compared to others of that genre/style/category but In the Lives of Puppets is a 5 star read of all 5 star reads and definitely a favorite not just of my 2023 but overall. When a book successfully entertains you, seduces you into thinking about it even when you're not reading and makes you feel all the feels, it and its author both deserve membership in the Favorites category.

Incredibly grateful to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for gifting me an ARC of one of my most anticipated reads of 2023! Note to publisher: I am already in a state of anticipation of whatever T.J. Klune might be writing/publishing next!

T.J. Klune does it AGAIN! I loved this journey. The novel is a queer re-telling of Pinnochio with a sci-fi twist. This was actually the author's most science fiction themed novels, the last two of his that i read (AND LOVED) were more fantasy based. There is still the same amount of whimsy. And the moments that pull on the heartstrings as I expect from the author. The parallels to Pinnochio were astounding.

From Amazon:
In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robots—fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They’re a family, hidden and safe.

The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled “HAP,” he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio–a past spent hunting humans.

When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio’s former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, the rest of Vic’s assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.

Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: Can he accept love with strings attached?

Inspired by Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio, and like Swiss Family Robinson meets Wall-E, In the Lives of Puppets is a masterful stand-alone fantasy adventure from the beloved author who brought you The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door.

The supporting characters were the most HUMAN of robots you will ever meet.. Themes of love, found family, humanity and the power of memory abound.

The novel will be published on April 25, 2023. Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Books for the digital advanced reader copy! Get it when it comes out!!!!

This is such a phenomenal read! The character dynamics were written so perfectly and each character is so wholesome and distinct. I think the author does a great job bringing all of them to life and though all of them are robots (besides Vic), they're so complex. I personally really liked the pacing of the story. The development in the characters themselves as well as their relationships with each other created a very immersive story and I was completely sucked in to their world. If I had to pick a favorite character, I think I would go with Rambo but honestly, they're all amazing. The humor was one of my favorite things about this book. In the Lives of Puppets is full of fun and quirky characters and yet, there were so many emotional and heartbreaking moments. I also loved the representation in this book and I was rooting for the characters all the way!

I'm not sure why the jacket copy on the TJ Klune books I've read has been so misleading; I never know what to expect in a way that makes it hard to gauge my enjoyment of the book. I think I liked this more than I expected to, and I liked the way that familiar elements were incorporated into it. It's possible it just wasn't for me, but it felt like something was missing.

This was a cute and emotional read for most of us. TJ Clune just has this way with words and with building relationships that are heart wrenching every time.

We liked the House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door way better. But this is still good. You will still feel connected to quirky side characters. You will still get a story about found family.

This is a sci-fi type of book where the world is taken over by robots and there seemingly isn’t a lot of humans left. The story focuses on Victor, a human raised by a realistic human type robot named Leo. They live in the forest of what was known as Oregon. They have a quirky home built high into the trees, which sounds cool, and is made from found parts. Victor, like his father, Leo makes, invents and fixed things form found parts. He has a roomba that has severe anxiety and a nurse like robot who is a bit of a sociopath and completely hilarious (TJ has a way with side characters).

He discovers another human like robot and fixes him up bringing him back to life, Hap. And from there everything goes to shit.

Major spoilers follow:
Some intense robots find them and take Leo with them to the capital. Turns out Leo escaped a shitty dictatorship where robots took over the world and killed humans. He was in charge of inventing things and invented robots like Hap that went out to kill humans. And turns out there’s supposedly no more humans left except for Victor. Victor is devastated but determined to find his dad and takes his friends with him. Together they find a floating house/museum dedicated to humans and first robots. Another robot helps them get into the capital and they meet the blue butterfly who helped Leo escape the first time AND gave Leo a human egg (no knowledge how she got it she claims it’s the only one do we believe her?) also no info given on how it was fertilized (this is where we get down to the reasons I gave this four stars some of the things just don’t make sense and don’t get explained).

So they partner up with the blue butterfly to bring down the establishment. She’s been trying to give robots the freedom of choice to inspire them to live their own lives and think for themselves. Would like to know more info about her because the robot version of her sounded confusing.

They rescue Leo and take Hap back, who was destroyed. They overload the computer that connects all the robots and takes down the establishment (this happened quickly). Instead of taking help to rebuild Leo and Hap’s hearts from the blue butterfly (honestly this was a mistake because she could have gotten them back to normal) they leave and find a new home and he remakes their life. Leo isn’t quite the same but Hap kind of is.

However it had poor world building. Mashing up Wizard of Oz, Brave Little Toaster, and Pinocchio just doesn’t work well. The beginning was good but then it just dragged on and on and on and on and the “romance” was so poorly executed it just shouldn’t have been included. Also it felt weird that the human had less emotions than the robots. Like how are they learning and evolving when he’s so meh.

Favorite moments: anything with the roomba and the nurse robot. Hilarious.