New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune invites you deep into the heart of a peculiar forest and on the extraordinary journey of a family assembled from spare parts.
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.
Title : In The Lives of Puppets
Author : T.J. Klune
Format : ARC
Page Count : 432
Genre : LGBTQIAP+ fantasy / sci-fi
Publisher : Tor Books
Release Date : April 25, 2023
Reviewer : Hollis
Rating : ★ ★.5
Hollis' 2.5 star review
I really didn't think I'd be coming out of one of my most anticipated releases feeling so.. ambivalent. Unmoved. But here we are.
I definitely didn't hate it but despite some quirky side-characters gadding about with the usual Klune-style hijinks it is, unfortunately, unmemorable. I've definitely struggled with some of this authors' work in the past (notably, in fact, said struggles were with the series that I constantly saw parallels of while reading this book) but even those stand out in a variety of ways. This one? Honestly, it doesn't. It's already starting to fade and I literally just put it down.
However, I'll say that if you enjoyed the Verania series? I think you'll have a better time than I did. The more outlandish humour that exists in those books has been absent from the last few (trad) releases but I finally saw some of it filtering through these characters. It was occasionally funny, especially in the beginning, and then I got tired. The same way Verania tired me out. And in fact it felt like the same character ensemble dynamic -- even if I did enjoy these character archetypes more, particularly in the case of Nurse Ratched (though would I be saying the same if we were five books deep with the same shtick? unlikely because, again, I was tired well before the end of just one book). Maybe another reason this didn't work.
But truthfully, I think it was more than just the fifty shades of Verania. Or a combination of the two. Because for a book so focused on hearts, I didn't feel much of it. Heart, I mean. I never connected with the emotional beats of the story, I never connected with Victor who was our only lens to live through, and when it's all said and done I have no idea where these characters go from here. A story doesn't really need a purpose or a finite ending but I feel like some direction might've helped here, especially as the plot was so.. light.
There are definitely some lovely bits mixed in with the outlandish, Klune certainly knows how to turn a phrase, and there was some interesting dialogue about humanity and flaws and acceptance, but sadly it all just kind of bounced off me. I could acknowledged the funny, the sweet, the whatever, and then, poof, moment over. But maybe that's just me. Maybe I'm the problem.
While I'm (sadly) not able to climb aboard the hype train for this release, if you're looking for something that's an homage (though less than I expected..) to Pinocchio, with more The Brave Little Toaster than I've seen since the nineties, seasoned by a pinch of Frankenstein, a dash of Wall-E, and a splash of The Monk and The Robot.. or you're just another Klunatic willing to devour anything by this author (no judgment here, I am one of you!), I would definitely not want to scare you away from giving this a go. This might very well satisfy -- or, to stick with the robot theme, hit all your buttons. And I hope it does.
** I received an ARC from the publisher (thank you!) in exchange for an honest review. **
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