Puppet is loosely based on the story of Pinocchio although not massively so.  At the start of the story Penelope has been taking part in science experiments performed by her new guardian Jed.  Penelope is an orphan and Jed adopted her from the orphanage, took her away from all her misery and give her a fresh start in his home.  However, he’s not exactly a knight in shining armour as he only took her on the condition that she became his guinea pig.

The story is set in an alternate future where marionettes have developed and are now robots with speed and strength used for various tasks.  Jed is obsessed with marionettes and his experiments will turn Penelope into a human version.  She will become faster and stronger but unfortunately having all this raw and uncontrolled power at her fingertips, combined with Penelope’s human qualities such as the ability to think and reason, and also lie, means she becomes an object of fear and attracts the unwanted attention of those in power.

I do enjoy retellings and I was keen to see how this story would be tackled, ultimately however this fell a little flat for me.

To break it down.  The world building.  I couldn’t really get a feel for the place.  Why the marionettes had been developed in what otherwise seemed and felt like a fairly basic society.  What was really there purpose as it seemed to boil down to cheap tricks and performances in carnivals and side shows.  I just had too many questions and niggles that seemed to go unanswered.  I can live without a full explanation of the sci fi involved as sometimes the explanation can leave more queries than it resolves but what was the purpose of developing a human marionette – that’s a major query right there that I never felt was tackled.

The characters.  I struggled to like Penelope although I thought Jed made an interesting character.  There was a romantic interest thrown in with Jed’s son but it felt a little superficial and the way the two behaved made me wonder whether they really cared about each other at all!

Lastly the plot.  Again, with the unresolved questions for me plus just areas that I found irritating or with holes.  Too many plot devices that were rather blatantly used to further the story – which I’m not going to list as they will constitute spoilers.

I never enjoy writing a negative review which is reflected in the length of this piece.  It may feel like I haven’t justified all my concerns but thats simply in order to stay away from spoilers.  In fairness to the book however I do feel I should mention that this is a YA novel and actually has quite a ‘young’ feel to it and clearly I’m not the target audience here so whilst this might not be for me I recognise it could work perfectly for others and I would hate to deter anybody for reading.  The simple fact is that this story and I just simply didn’t get along.

I would like to thank the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.  The above is my own opinion.