I would like to thank the publisher, Netgalley, and the author for the ARC of this book. I read an advanced copy of this book, so the final edition of the book might be slightly different. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.

I’ve read quite a few T.J. Klune books at this point, and if you’ve been a fan of his books, you’ll be a fan of this one! It fits right in with his other books he’s published with similar covers, like Under the Whispering Door; a book set in an interesting world but where the focus remains on the characters and their relationships with one another. In the Lives of Puppets is another one of those internal stories, where the external world is exciting and intriguing and mysterious, but the true focus of the book still lies in the internal journey of the main character. There’s also the same, soft relationship and eccentric cast of side characters, and together it all just continues to work!

Despite how similar its pieces are to Klune’s other books, though, In the Lives of Puppets also just stands strongly on its own. It’s still very much its own story, and the similarities to his past works stop at those similar tropes/building blocks of the story. Victor’s troubles are entirely unlike those of the MCs of his other books, and he’s also much younger than those characters as well. There’s a stronger sense of isolation throughout the entire book too, tempered by how fiercely all the characters love each other, but it remains there all the same. Very few post-apocalyptic books manage to truly capture the sheer isolation that comes with being one of the few remaining of your species, but Klune does it really well here, and it becomes a driving force in many aspects of the book. It’s also fascinating to see here, because in some ways the robots that surround Victor are extremely human-like. However, we always end up seeing how not-human they truly are, despite their relationships with Victor being so close to normal human ones. It’s an interesting concept to see play out, made even more so by how much focus there is on these internal aspects of the characters as well! Usually these sorts of end-of-the-world books focus so much more on the action, and solving whatever ruined the world, and we almost never get to spend this much time actually thinking about what it all actually means with the characters that are going through it.

I also really liked how this book centered on familial relationships more as well. The MCs of Klune’s other books like Puppets are often very isolated: no friends, no family, no anything really. Victor is extremely different in that regard, all he has is family and friends, and his desire to create. We really get to explore what those relationships mean to Victor, and what happens when something threatens them. We also get to see what happens when secrets come out, and how even the most close of bonds can still suffer when one person realizes the other was keeping so much from you. And most interesting of all, there’s this constant thread of starting over, of trying again, and what that actually really means when it comes to both relationships with others and finding a home for yourself. There’s a lot of loss in this book, but in forms that aren’t often tackled in the fiction I’ve read, and it makes for such an interesting book, with so many threads to continue thinking about long after the book is done.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and the way it kept my head spinning in a more reflective way. It makes for a calmer, slower book, but those sorts of stories are often the best breaks from the world anyway!