Uploaded June 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
TJ Klune tells us how everything from Steven Speilberg to The Matrix helped inspire his Pinocchio retelling, In the Lives of Puppets.
BUY In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune here: uk.bookshop.org/a/73/9781529088021
BUY Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi here: uk.bookshop.org/p/a/73/199967?ean=9781509842902
MORE about the book:
From New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune, In the Lives of Puppets is a queer retelling of the Pinocchio tale, inviting you deep into the heart of a peculiar forest and on the extraordinary journey of a family assembled from spare parts.
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?
Inspired by Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio, In the Lives of Puppets is a masterful standalone fantasy adventure from the author who brought you The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door.
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TJ Klune tells us how everything from Steven Speilberg to The Matrix helped inspire his Pinocchio retelling, In the Lives of Puppets.
BUY In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune here: uk.bookshop.org/a/73/9781529088021
BUY Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi here: uk.bookshop.org/p/a/73/199967?ean=9781509842902
MORE about the book:
From New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune, In the Lives of Puppets is a queer retelling of the Pinocchio tale, inviting you deep into the heart of a peculiar forest and on the extraordinary journey of a family assembled from spare parts.
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?
Inspired by Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio, In the Lives of Puppets is a masterful standalone fantasy adventure from the author who brought you The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door.
FIND us on:
TikTok: tiktok.com/@panmacmillan
Twitter: twitter.com/panmacmillan
Instagram: instagram.com/panmacmillan/?hl=en
panmacmillan.com
