(photo from Amazon. Will update once my physical copy comes in)
I decided to read In The Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune because the summary sounded so odd. It was whimsical and different, so unlike anything I had read before. I hadn’t known it was a Pinocchio retelling at first. In fact, as I read, I thought it might be a Frankenstein retelling. I still stand by that, at least a little bit. I’ll get back to the Pinocchio retelling piece a little later in my review.
I’m going to tell you what I will be telling everyone from now on- if you read the summary and thought this book may not be for you, I encourage you to read it anyway. I say this not because the summary didn’t immediately sell me on it (it did) but I have heard comments like this surrounding the book. Not only did I laugh more than I ever have while reading a book (Nurse Ratched and Rambo’s dialogue had me crying from so much laughter), I connected to these characters immediately.
Without giving too much away, Victor lives with his father, Gio, and his friends Nurse Ratched and Rambo out in the forest. He likes to collect bits and pieces of scrap to build more or improve on the machines and things they have around their treehouse home (take a second to read that again. Yes, a TREEHOUSE HOME). The robots around him are very human in their personalities even though two of them look nothing like us. Nurse Ratched and Rambo can succumb to their original programming at times, which provides for even more funny and heartfelt moments. We’re introduced to a particularly complex android, Hap, that gives wonderful insight into choice and what it means to be human.
A common theme throughout the book is battling loneliness and, linked to that, finding where one fits in the world. Remember what I said about connecting to these characters immediately? I think that’s why. Almost all of us have experienced or are experiencing those feelings. Klune made robots more open to their emotions than almost any human I’ve ever met, and tied them into the beautiful package that is this book.
Hap and Gio are both complicated characters, having pasts that don’t quite align with who they truly are. It begs the question, can we change? Can we improve the future despite our past as a species? An interesting thought.
Regarding the Pinnochio telling, I have only one major critique. I didn’t think it was necessary. This story could have easily stood on its own without any reference to Pinnochio. At times it felt forced, not quite melding into the world, in my opinion. This clearly did not take away from my experience as this is honestly one of the best books I’ve ever read, but it didn’t necessarily add.
I won’t say any more, for fear of spoiling, but just know that the range of emotions I felt while reading this book are unparalleled. I truly did laugh, and cry, and gasp and feel so incredibly happy I was able to read this book. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
A Few Favorite Quotes:
- “‘What if I wish for impossible things?’
‘Then you’re doing it right. It always seems impossible when you first start.’”
- “Words were a weapon, he knew, one that had taken him a long time to wield. But he was different than he’d been before. He wasn’t that boy. He’d found his voice. This machine– this man– had given it to him.”
- “‘Something to it, I think. Maybe I was meant to find you. Before and now.’”
- “In his secret heart, hope had flickered like a dying flame.”
- “‘My feet hurt,’ Rambo said.
‘You do not have feet.’
‘Oh. Well if I did, they would hurt.’”
- “He felt it, then, something foreign, sticky, all-consuming. Its tendrils whipped up around him, pulling him down, down, and as he gasped for air, he recognized it for what it was though he’d never experienced it before in his life. A word flitted through the static as if stuck to the wing of a butterfly. Grief. This was grief.”
I could quote almost the entire book, so I’ll make myself stop there!
Comments