The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, 1)

T J Klune has, over the last - what? - ten years become one of my very favorite queer writers. IN THE LIVES OF PUPPETS is simply "over the top" fabulous :-}

Young Vic, presumably the last human on earth (after the A.I. androids & robots THOUGHT they had wiped out all human existence), lives deep in the green woods with his loving mechanical father Gio, snarky, electronic "comic relief" Nurse Ratched (though "she" proves throughout the book that "she" is much more than "comic relief,") and the lovable but nearly clueless "Roomba Vacuum" robot, Rambo. This is a loving dystopian family if ever there was one.

The story really begins to come together when Vic, Nurse Ratched (short for Registered Automaton To Care, Heal, Educate and Drill) and Rambo find, in the "scrapyard," the remains of a barely surviving human-like Android labeled "Hap" whom they take home with them. After some time Vic is able make Hap "whole" again. But, in digging out Hap's "body," Vic cut himself and accidentally left a few drops of his blood on the scrap heap from where he dug Hap out. Then "all hell breaks loose." Their family home in the forest is totally destroyed by the A. I. Androids and Gio is kidnapped, taken to Electric City, "brainwashed," and put back to his old purpose of stomping out any signs of humanity.

What follows is an eventful and sometimes scary trip to Electric City (I'm kinda thinking of Dorothy's trip to see the WIZARD OF OZ here?) ending with a "turning point" meeting with the all knowing but very frightening "Blue Fairy" {think OZ ;-}

Though not really a "gay" novel, a really sweet asexual "romance" develops between Hap and Vic during the last 2/3 of the novel and the two boys find themselves sleeping together every night toward the end of the book.

A really beautiful novel and totally worth the 5 star reviews on Amazon.

In the Lives of Puppets is now one of my favorite books. It was beautifully written. It was hilarious right from the start. The characters were immediately lovable. All the characters all had such different personalities but such a strong bond. Love knows no bounds in this book. This book made me giddy, it made me happy, made me laugh way more than any book I have read before, and it also made me sob my eyeballs out. This book is about found family, it’s about loyalty, love, and growth. It’s about learning to be who you are and who you want to be rather than what society tells you to be.

Phew. I need to give this book more than 5 stars. It deserves all the stars. Just when I think TJ Klune cannot create a book that is better than his last masterpiece, he proves me wrong. This book. Is. Everything. Expect to feel all the things - to laugh, to swoon, to bite your nails, to roll your eyes, to grit your teeth, to be verklempt, to gasp, and to cry. This is a story of an adventure, a quest by a human and his uniquely cobbled together family but at its heart it really a story about the power of choice. This book is a life and love affirming masterpiece encompassed in a beautiful, heart warming, heart wrenching story of messy life, love, family, and finding your path. The book is about Vic, a human inventor, who lives in the middle of the forest with Gio, his android father, Rambo, an overly anxious hyperactive vacuum, Nurse Ratched, a sociopathic medical machine, and a recent addition, Hap, an former killing android. When Gio is taken by the Authority to the City of Electric Dreams, Vic and his cobbled together family embark on their quest to get Gio back. Much like Pinocchio they learn so much on the journey after they leave home. It is on their quest and the beings that they meet, the things they see, and they things they do that solidify for the truth inside each of them that “I am choosing,…I am making my own choice. I don’t have strings.” TJ Klune is a master storyteller who has perfected the art of writing stories whose meaning and emotions stay with you long after you read the last word and whose main characters include beautiful three dimensional, imperfect, non-hetero, neurodiverse characters who have such depth and so much heart that you want them to be your best friends. I feel like now I will always be searching for a version of Rambo, Nurse Ratched, Hap, Vic, and Gio to add to my family. I hope they find me.

This book had me laughing out loud one minute and sad the next. I felt anything was possible along the journey of the characters!

I'm so curious how the author seems to have been forced to make changes to the story because "apparently the world is not ready for such a book". What were the changes? This is now my second read by this author and I'm coming back for more.

Victor Lawson is a human boy being raised in the forest by Giovanni, the AI who created him. His life is filled with adventure and experimentation, spent in the company of Gio, the AI vacuum Rambo and Nurse Ratched, but he is growing up now and beginning to wonder about the rest of the world. One day while exploring the Scrapyards, the friends come across an AI that is almost, but not quite, “dead”; Vic decides to save it, unaware that he is aiding a killing machine. Hap, as the AI comes to be called, is himself unsure of his purpose, but when the AI overlords discover the hidden family, he joins forces with Vic, Rambo and Nurse Ratched to reunite the family and maybe save the world…. I loved T.J. Klune’s previous novels, “The House In the Cerulean Sea” and “Under the Whispering Door,” so was happy to find this new work; unlike the previous books, however, I’m left a bit conflicted with this one. It has something to do with the original Pinocchio story (not the Disney movie), something to do with futuristic sf/f and something along the lines of queer coming-of-age story, but not all of it quite jells for me. There is some frank language about human anatomy and sexuality that might not be suitable for younger readers, and the fact that aside from self-professed “sociopathic” Nurse Ratched there are no female characters in this entirely male/masculine-adjacent world bothered me, a female reader. That said, there’s a great deal of inventiveness here, and Mr. Klune’s knack for creating characters that the reader becomes easily emotionally engaged with still stand out in this work. So, a mixed review from me; I’d recommend starting with the two earlier books mentioned and going on from there.