ARC Review: In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune

In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Anticpated Publication Date: April 25, 2023

5 stars because holy crap, y'all

If you go into this expecting a funny little book because it's a Pinocchio re-telling but with robots including a talking Roomba with anxiety you will definitely get that but you will also get an epic, emotional, and wonderful story about humanity, loneliness, forgiveness, and love. Like what the crap I don't know how it happened but it is a real journey.

All the characters are fully developed and complex, even the robot vacuum. Or maybe especially the robot vacuum. There were lines which made me laugh and then a few pages later it was deep thoughts and emotions. I appreciated the levity because otherwise it would be Too Much. As it is, I will probably be thinking about these characters for a while.

I should have expected a book about robots to do this to me since this is the same author who thought "haha what if i wrote a book about werewolves wouldn't that be fun" and gave us the emotional throat punch of the Green Creek series which ruined me for a week after I read it but here we are.

Oh, and the romance! Incredibly slow burn and quiet but very deep as Hap and Victor learn about themselves and each other. It gave a compelling undercurrent to the plot and I was very Invested in them. And we got fun lines like this:

"What you are feeling now might be considered happiness."

"It's terrible," Hap said. "I want to p-punch something."

I don't want to spoil anything because the less you know going in the better the experience will be so I will end my review here.

tl;dr In conclusion, Klune did it again. Good book everyone go read it.

Side note: I looked up Pinocchio (the original non-Disney version) and first of all, children's stories were fucked up back in the day - Pinocchio and his friends die a lot as punishment for being bad kids and not doing their homework and eating too much candy and whatever. BUT there really are a lot of elements and characters pulled from the story except, you know, robots. Neat!

I received an ARC copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.


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