In the Lives of Puppets

⭐⭐⭐⭐▫️

Finished on: Dec 17, 2024

ibsn13: 9781250217431

Victor and his robot companions live an isolated life in the forest with the Victor’s father Gio. Victor regularly ventures forth into the nearby scrapyards to salvage parts despite Gio telling him not to.

One day, Victor discovers something that changes the course of his life forever. Hijinks ensue.

Klune’s ability to insert the most heinous events/premises I’ve ever read in my life into the most saccharine stories I’ve ever read is constantly impressing.

**Spoilers for the first few chapters: **

When Victor ventures into the scrapyards and finds a mass grave of androids, the hits despite it being so tonally at odds with the rest of the text being very precious. But Klune makes it work.

Klune’s style here feels very similar to The House In The Cerulean Sea (T. J. Klune). I suspect that I would have appreciated this book more if I’d have given myself a longer “Klune” break between reading these two books.

Also, Klune’s foreword mentions that the text required extensive rewrites to remove parts of the text that “the world wasn’t ready for”. I really wish I could read that draft of the text.

In the Lives of Puppets was sold to me as Klune’s autism book and I’m not 100% certain after reading it if that describing it that way is descriptive.

It’s more of a Klune book that an autism book if that makes sense.