The blurb explains the premise of this Pinocchio-inspired book pretty clearly: a human (Victor) and three robots form an atypical family living deep in the forest. Their life is changed when Giovanni’s (Victor’s android father) past building human-hunting killing machines comes back to haunt them, and Giovanni is taken to be decommissioned or reprogrammed. Victor and the remaining robot members of his strange but loving little family are off to rescue him.
This premise intrigued me. Along with having wanted to give TJ Klune a try, this was an easy book for me to want to pick up.
It would have made it even easier if they had published an alternate, shorter blurb for this book, something like “the story of a boy and his three robot buddies, GLaDOS, Claptrap, and the Terminator.”
The main story of this book didn’t quite click for me. It was fine, Victor as a character was fine, the emotional resonance was fine. I don’t have any complaints about it, but it’s also not something I’m going to be thinking about for a long time. It felt a little like the literary version of an Oscar-bait film, if I’m being completely honest. A bit pretentious, and full of Very Important Symbolism and saying Serious Things.
But oh dear lord, Victor’s three robot friends. This book was hilarious. If you’re familiar with the Borderlands and Portal video game series, then you can no doubt imagine what it would be like if GLaDOS had to deal with Claptrap, and it is AMAZING. Throw in the T-800, and this book never stopped being funny.
Comes out April 25.