by TJ Klune ★★★★☆
I first discovered TJ Klune, like many, with his novel The House in the Cerulean Sea, and I enjoyed his follow-up effort Under the Whispering Door almost as much. Both books took place in a semi-fantastical place, populated by a menagerie of big-hearted characters, both human and other. So when In the Lives of Puppets started in a similar manner -- with a collection of quirky, sweet characters living in a treehouse in the woods -- it felt familiar, and I had a strong idea where it was going.
In the Lives of Puppets is different, though. The setting shifts from the treehouse camp and sees our protagonists head out on an adventure. Klune wrote the story as a light retelling of Pinnochio, the "children's" novel by Carlo Collodi as opposed to the Disney film ("children's" in quotes because it's a dark f'ing book!). But in the same way you might not draw the connection between Hello Beautiful and Little Women, the same holds true here. There are some light parallels to Pinnochio, but this is another wholly creative and unique story from the mind of TJ Klune.
Many of Klune's signature elements are present. There is a creatively rendered setting in which the story takes place -- mostly in our world, but different enough that it feels created. The characters are funny and sweet, and like with his other books the supporting cast steals the show from the main protagonists. Another common Klune staple is the addition of a queer love element to the story. However, where Klune deftly handled that in his other novels, it felt more forced this time around, as if his editor told him "but...but...they have to form a romantic bond; otherwise it's not a TJ Klune novel!"
Without giving too much away, the novel opens in the aforementioned home in the trees, in a setting that strongly evoked images of Ewok Village for me. Technology and AI have advanced to the point that humans have created fully functioning and sentient androids. One such android, Giovanni Lawson, is living alone in the woods when a panicked human couple drop off a baby. Giovanni names him Victor and he ends up raising the child as his own. As children need friends, and with no one nearby in their remote woodland location, Giovanni has no choice but to create them. He refurbishes a hilarious nursing robot (who's also mildly sociopathic, when she doesn't have her "empathy protocol" engaged) named "Nurse Ratched", and pairs her with a sentient and augmented Roomba vacuum named "Rambo", whose sunny disposition and childlike wonder were the highlight of the novel for me.
The family of four go about their days in a WALL-E-like existence, visiting a nearby scrap yard and scavenging for parts or broken pieces of technology that they can refurbish. Things start to change when they stumble upon another android buried in a pile of scrap. They bring him home and work on ways to revive him. And that's when things start to take a significantly different turn from Klune's fairly well-established formula from previous novels.
While Klune has never been short on creativity, In the Lives of Puppets raised that bar even higher. He outdid himself by creating even more depth of his characters as well as a thoughtful imagining of a future world in which humans and sentient machines coexist. With humans and machines living side-by-side, the inevitable commentary on "what it truly means to be alive" is present and handled well. There is also subtext around control and the rights of creatures, and specifically how those rights can change over time depending who is in control. There is a darker layer to this novel than Klune's previous works, and I think it actually helps add a layer of gravitas to the book.
Overall, it was a fascinating and enjoyable read.