In the Lives of Puppets

           

Title: In the Lives of Puppets

Author: TJ Klune

Published: Tor Books, April 25, 2023

Pages: 417

Genre: LGBTQ Fantasy

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.

*swoon* This book made me swoon for many reasons. It's this really interesting take on Pinocchio with robots. It makes you question what makes a person, what makes a soul, what's your purpose? Those are really big questions! Typically, I don't like an existential crisis as a side item to my fictional escapes. But this one was so uplifting and funny that I didn't even mind.

Anyway, this book was beautiful. You have this fairly innocent, curious young man, Victor, and his 2 bestie robots that he's restored. Rambo is this neurotic vacuum cleaner, and Nurse Ratched is a psychotic nurse machine. If I took nothing else away from this book, these 2 would have made the whole thing worth it. They are so hilarious and ridiculous. Victor is just living life, and inventing things, and restoring machines. Watching old movies and listening to music with his besties and his dad, Giovanni, who is also a robot. 

Then Victor finds and restores Hap. Then the Terrible Dogfish comes to their forest and takes Giovanni back to the City of Electric Dreams. So Victor, his 2 best friends, and their new...friend?... Hap travel to rescue GIO. Along the way they meet the Coachmen and the Blue Fairy. They become exhibits in a museum and have to cuddle together in tiny crates to sneak into the city. And Victor might be asexual, as Nurse Ratched likes to remind us, but he sure does like to hold Hap's hand. All the while they're exploring how much of a person is based on predetermined programming, choice, and memory. It's incredibly moving.

And I have to mention the audio production. I started this as an ebook from the library and had to switch to the audiobook because I wasn't finished by the time the loan was due. Daniel Henning is so talented! The robot voices were so spot on! Bravo!!

Ratings

Stars: 5/5