I am trying out a new author, well new to me at least, with the book In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune. It tells the story of a young man named Victor Lawson who lives deep in the forest in a tree house built in a grove of trees. Alongside him are Giovanni Lawson, a robot who is also Victor’s adoptive father, Nurse Ratched who is a nurse robot and Rambo who is a vacuum robot. Victor adds another member to their little family when he rescues and repairs a robot that he calls Hap. However, things start to get difficult when it is revealed that Hap is a robot who was created to hunt and kill all humans, humans like Victor. When other robots show up looking for Hap they also discover Giovanni, who was formerly Gio and the robot that created Hap and his necessary programming to kill humans. In order to decide what they should do when the robots manage to capture Gio, Victor must decide if he can accept Gio and Hap’s past and if so how he feels about it.
This book was interesting because it dealt with a lot of trick and convoluted emotional problems. The main one is the continuing underlying theme of what makes a family. For Victor, a family is chosen and can evolve and change over time and is often difficult emotionally. His family consists entirely of robots and not all of them look human, even though all of them have distinct personalities and emotional responses. On top of that though it also deals with having to come to terms with the idea that a family member can have a gruesome or sordid past and yet still be the same kind and loving person that you know and are used to. This is something that Victor struggles with throughout the book as he tries to come to terms with what Gio and Hap have done in the past. The main reason that Victor seems to struggle is that as the human he feels like he has to decide if they deserve forgiveness or not but he also feels like since it didn’t directly affect him, being born after it all had happened, that he is not the right person to offer that forgiveness in the first place. I have to admit that is a particularly tricky emotional situation to be in but this book does a great job of navigating the intricacies of it. Victor is shown repeatedly struggling with it and each time it also indicates that no matter what the decision is still ultimately his and no one can make it for him. At the same time it shows that the decision is a difficult one to make and rightly so and shows that it is the kind of decision that should not be rushed. I was really impressed by how adroitly the book handled this particular situation over the course of the book. Another thing that rather impressed me about this book is how well it handled the idea of Victor identifying as Asexual. This is a minority identity from what I have seen but this representation seems to be pretty realistic. I know that Asexual is a spectrum and not all of them are quite the same but this seemed to be pretty close to the general experience. At the very least it was respectful and not derogatory or demeaning as is so frequently seen. That gains my respect for this book and author all on its own. The story itself was still pretty great though and one that I thoroughly enjoyed, I kept wanting to laugh at the interactions between Victor, Rambo and Nurse Ratched. I am happy giving this book four out of five stars.
This book is a great addition to the science-fiction genre while also belonging to LGBTQ+ literature. If you enjoy either of those than you might consider trying this out. I am not sure how well it would appeal to readers who prefer other genres but I would still suggest you at least consider it. This book is primarily aimed at adult readers which I would mostly agree with. It does contain some mature or semi-mature references but it is not explicit. I would say it is alright for younger readers but only readers who are in the teen or young adult age range and probably only those at the upper end of that age range. Like I said, I do hope you will consider trying it out and if you do feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.