In The Lives Of Puppets by T.J. Klune

In The Lives Of Puppets by T.J. Klune
UK Publication: April 2023
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: [★★★★]

This ARC was provided by Pan Macmillan (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.

The Pinocchio, Terminator, Wall-E smash up I never realised was missing from my life.

Synopsis from Goodreads: 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?

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.

My Thoughts:  OMG this book!

Those familiar with Klune’s writing will already be familiar with the idea of found family, of misfits making good and of being true to yourself no matter what and this book encompasses all that in a hysterically funny way.

I am having a hard time deciding on my favourite character is it the psychotic and snarky Nurse Ratched who has the best one liners or is it the lovable Rambo who is everything I would want a robot vacuum cleaner to be? It will probably continue to vary forever.

A great story with a great cast and I can definitely see a movie somewhere in its future.

Who would like this? I would recommend this to fans of T.J Klune; to anyone who loves a book that makes you laugh; who loves unlikely heroes & those who enjoy hidden cult references in their in reading. Psychotic Nurse Ratched anyone?

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