In the Lives of Puppets

Tammy Moldovan

A beautifully, funny, profound masterpiece wrapped in a tale of love, choice and family

"Phew. I need to give this book more than 5 stars. It deserves all the stars. Just when I think TJ Klune cannot create a book that is better than his last masterpiece, he proves me wrong. This book. Is. Everything. Expect to feel all the things - to laugh, to swoon, to bite your nails, to roll your eyes, to grit your teeth, to be verklempt, to gasp, and to cry. This is a story of an adventure, a quest by a human and his uniquely cobbled together family but at its heart it really a story about the power of choice. This book is a life and love affirming masterpiece encompassed in a beautiful, heart warming, heart wrenching story of messy life, love, family, and finding your path. The book is about Vic, a human inventor, who lives in the middle of the forest with Gio, his android father, Rambo, an overly anxious hyperactive vacuum, Nurse Ratched, a sociopathic medical machine, and a recent addition, Hap, an former killing android. When Gio is taken by the Authority to the City of Electric Dreams, Vic and his cobbled together family embark on their quest to get Gio back. Much like Pinocchio they learn so much on the journey after they leave home. It is on their quest and the beings that they meet, the things they see, and they things they do that solidify for the truth inside each of them that “I am choosing,…I am making my own choice. I don’t have strings.” TJ Klune is a master storyteller who has perfected the art of writing stories whose meaning and emotions stay with you long after you read the last word and whose main characters include beautiful three dimensional, imperfect, non-hetero, neurodiverse characters who have such depth and so much heart that you want them to be your best friends. I feel like now I will always be searching for a version of Rambo, Nurse Ratched, Hap, Vic, and Gio to add to my family. I hope they find me. ["

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June 4, 2023 Verified Purchase

Kathy Andrews

Adventure and Heartache

"I loved the funny dialogue given to the robots Nurse Ratched and Rambo, and the portrayal of a possible future. The story ends so beautifully, with musings on parenthood, love, and forgiveness. I give the story four stars for perhaps an unfair reason, that I so wanted the story to end with (spoiler alert) Gio starting a lab to create more humans. Perhaps there’s room for that for the characters after we leave them at the end of the book. Or perhaps the lesson for me is that love is about bringing more life to what already exists, rather than creating new beings? I’ve read three of TJ Klune’s books in the last couple of months, and strongly recommend them all. Whatever TJ Klune writes next, I’ll be reading it for sure. ["

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July 13, 2023 Verified Purchase

TechnoBears

TJ Klune's "In the Lives of Puppets" blew me away

"I had started TJ Klune's book "In the Lives of Puppets" a long while ago and I hard time getting into the novel, but then I decided to pick it back up during my vacation and then and only then I could not put it down. I really loved all of the characters from Victor, who is the only human; and Nurse Ratched and the vacuum named Rambo and Victor's Dad, Giovanni; and I loved Hap, who was once a machine whose main purpose was to terminate humans but Vic found him in the trash yard and put him back together with the only difference being a homemade heart with a drop of blood; and that made Hap, even though he was a machine that was programmed to terminate all humans, become very human and who began to think for himself and began to realize how precious life was. Also, I thoroughly love the intense chemistry between Victor and Hap. The journey that all of the characters have gone on was so intense. Also, there was so much humor spread out through this wonderful novel. I don't want to give too much away. I highly recommend TJ Klune's "In the Lives of Puppets." I even enjoyed the bonus material - "Rambo's Care Manual" and "Reduce! Reuse! Recycle" which was also a wonderful short story about a machine who is given a week to enjoy life but then has to return to the factory to be terminated... well, reduced, reused and recycled, but the machine decides that he wants to be alive after experiencing life for a week and does not want it to end. It was so awesome! ["

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October 27, 2024 Verified Purchase

Alison S. Coad

Not Quite Up to the Author's Best

"Victor Lawson is a human boy being raised in the forest by Giovanni, the AI who created him. His life is filled with adventure and experimentation, spent in the company of Gio, the AI vacuum Rambo and Nurse Ratched, but he is growing up now and beginning to wonder about the rest of the world. One day while exploring the Scrapyards, the friends come across an AI that is almost, but not quite, “dead”; Vic decides to save it, unaware that he is aiding a killing machine. Hap, as the AI comes to be called, is himself unsure of his purpose, but when the AI overlords discover the hidden family, he joins forces with Vic, Rambo and Nurse Ratched to reunite the family and maybe save the world…. I loved T.J. Klune’s previous novels, “The House In the Cerulean Sea” and “Under the Whispering Door,” so was happy to find this new work; unlike the previous books, however, I’m left a bit conflicted with this one. It has something to do with the original Pinocchio story (not the Disney movie), something to do with futuristic sf/f and something along the lines of queer coming-of-age story, but not all of it quite jells for me. There is some frank language about human anatomy and sexuality that might not be suitable for younger readers, and the fact that aside from self-professed “sociopathic” Nurse Ratched there are no female characters in this entirely male/masculine-adjacent world bothered me, a female reader. That said, there’s a great deal of inventiveness here, and Mr. Klune’s knack for creating characters that the reader becomes easily emotionally engaged with still stand out in this work. So, a mixed review from me; I’d recommend starting with the two earlier books mentioned and going on from there. ["

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September 23, 2023 Verified Purchase

Waiting to purchase

A nice story, but with room to elaborate

"The story was clever and the characters amusing. The conclusion didn't leave empty questions. I found the beginning elaborate with fine details. As it progressed, there was a obvious drop in details and humor. I would have preferred the originality continue even if it took time or needed to be made into volumes. Nonetheless, I was emotionally attached to the characters. There was even an unexpected faint glimmer of romance that would have been interesting to watch play out. ["

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April 24, 2025 Verified Purchase