Having loved the characters in In The Lives of Puppets, I wanted to pick up another by TJ Klune and I’ll try not to give anything away. Nate has lost his job, lost his parents and is estranged from his brother. All he has left is his father’s truck and a cabin in the mountains. Having nowhere else to go, Nate decides to go to the cabin to sort out his life. But - when he gets there he finds an armed man and a strange little girl. What happens next is exactly as TJ Klune himself describes - an action movie in a book. There is action, there is sci-fi, there is romance, there is love, there is found family, there is grief, and there is heart-break. Yes - there were tears. I fell in love with these characters, especially the little girl, Art. She is so special. There is some humour in here but not the same humour that I found in Puppets. What I could have done without is the one graphic sex scene - I don’t believe that it added anything and sometime what is implied, is much more effective and the reader is able to fill in all the gaps. Nevertheless, I had fun with this and found the found family story excellent.

This will be a very long review—half of it will be me singing endless praises for TJ Klune. So buckle up, and thank you for reading! If you make it to the end, applause to you! 🎉👏

The Bones Beneath My Skin is the latest masterpiece from TJ Klune, releasing on February 4, 2025—mark your calendars! 📅✨ I am in absolute awe.
I’ve been a devoted TJ Klune fan since 2020, the year I rediscovered the joy of reading, and no author has impacted me the way he has. He hasn’t just entered my top three authors—he’s dethroned every other one, and I am not ashamed to say it. 💖

I tandem-read this book using both an ARC and the ALC provided by Pan Macmillan (thank you for making my year!). It was the perfect way to kickstart 2025, and I couldn’t have asked for a better experience.

The story begins with Nate—a man who is jobless, parentless, friendless, and overwhelmingly lonely. Deciding he needs some time to reflect, he heads to his family’s mountain cottage, the only possession he has left aside from his truck. He’s hoping the isolation will help him figure out what to do next.

But life has other plans. When he arrives, he finds a brooding, quiet (and admittedly attractive) man pointing a gun at him... along with a child. This isn’t just any child—she’s precocious, eloquent, and undeniably weird. And in that moment, Nate can’t help but wonder what he did to deserve this mess of a life.

This book is perfection. 🌟

From the unforgettable characters to Klune’s signature writing style and the emotional depth of the plot, everything was pure magic.

🎧 Kirt Graves delivers a performance that’s nothing short of extraordinary. His voice captivated me during the Green Creek series, and once again, it creates the safe, magical space that only the combination of his narration and Klune’s words can achieve.

Klune’s writing is, without question, one of my favorite styles. I don’t typically enjoy third-person narration, but he makes it so personal, sweet, and entertaining that I couldn’t critique it even if I tried.

The plot unfolds beautifully. The fantasy elements emerge gradually, and while you can sense where the magic might lie, you’re never prepared for the emotional bombshell Klune will drop. As always, his writing is infused with reflective, profound, and jaw-dropping dialogues that feel like revelations.

The characters, though—they’re the true heart of this story.

Nate is all of us. He’s confused, messy, and clueless, but also curious, kind, and endearingly human.
Alex starts as the archetypal brooding, quiet MMC. But as the story progresses, Klune masterfully peels back his layers, revealing a man fiercely devoted to protecting those he loves.
Artemis Dark Vader. Oh, Artemis. She’s easily one of the best characters ever written. A 10-year-old girl who is witty, innocent, and curious, but also wise, perceptive, and incredibly powerful.

When this book is finally out in the world, I hope everyone will embrace it as much as I did. This is a masterpiece. 🖤✨ No one can—or ever will—convince me otherwise.

Thanks to NetGalley and Publisher for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Plot:
Nate has lost everything, his family, his job, his life and he goes to his family cabin in search of a future. But he finds 2 squatters in the cabin and gets mixed up in their situation which is larger than life itself. It's better if read with as little information as possible.
Thoughts:
I enjoyed this cozy sci-fi story a lot more than I expected to. The prose was a plus with full of quotes and emotion, characters were given adequate background, the fictional element was ever changing and not fully determined and the friendships were amazing. Near the end, there were a few flaws like being swayed by a group of people just to reach the climax which seriously could've been handled differently, there's an intimate scene at around 83% which came out of nowhere and fast tracked the romance unnecessarily. The ending was decent even with confusing mixed perspectives and timelines.

This is a beautiful story of found family, complicated lives, and wonderful, quirky characters who will remain in your heart. Oh, and there are a few gripping action scenes too!

I loved the slow build up of trust between Nate and Alex, the innocent wonder of Artemis Darth Vader, the wisdom and naivety of each character as we get to know them.

Heartwarming, heart wrenching at times, I loved reading every word and didn't want the book to end. Highly recommend.

T.J.Klune creates these wonderful found families that you never tire of. A unique premise for a story told brilliantly.

As per usual with TK Klune stories, I was enraptured by The Bones Beneath My Skin. Klune writes the best “found family” love stories.

At times the pacing felt off. After the climax it seemed like the end kind of fizzled out with a few unknowns. I also found the sex scene unnecessary, mostly because I felt like the characters lacked sexual chemistry with one another.

Art was my favourite character and many of her quotes are powerul. Overall a great read.

I'm not sure I could ever be unbiased with a TJ Klune novel - but this also hit the mark for me. I've always been a lover of Sci fi and space in general, and to have this packaged up with a book that hits the ground running from the beginning was such a treat.

While it wasn't my favourite of his novels, I still feel pulled to give this five stars because of the sheer emotion it pulled out of me, and how deeply I rooted for these three wonderful characters. As always, TJ Klune's advocating for authentic queer representation shone through.
What an amazing start to 2025!

A slow paced romance that shows how we can create our own family and how love can mean more than anything else. Alex, Nate and Artemis Darth Vader will make you fall in love with them, overcoming all the odds. I won’t repeat the synopsis here as I don’t want to spoil anyone, but if you like quirky characters and a gay love story, this is one for you. Full disclosure there is one fairly descriptive sex scene.

I received an ARC and audiobook copy of this via NetGalley and the publishers Tor, in return for an unbiased review.

This is such a weird and beautiful little story and I had a blast with it (and also cried, so there's that). It tells the story of Nate who just inherited a remote cabin from his late parents only to find a man with a gun accompanied by a very strange little girl there. Neither of them seems to be who they tell him they are, and thus begins what Klune himself calls an action movie in book format.

I generally just like Klune's writing, although I do feel like this book leaned heavily into the really short sentences which I didn't enjoy as much. Nate's narrative voice is not my favourite. The book also feels tonally inconsistent at times. It's also rather less humorous than the last books I've read by the author, but it fits the tone of the story perfectly. One of its major themes is grief and I loved the way it was explored here.
The characters are complex, well-written and just so so loveable, and the found family in here made me bawl my eyes out at times. There's a love story, too, and it is beautifully told - although I admittedly wouldn't have needed that random sex scene because it just made no sense for it to happen when it happens and is partly what I meant with the tonal inconsistency Anyway, Nate and Alex are special, though not as special as Art. Artemis Darth Vader, the strange little girl, is most definitely the star of the whole show and the heart of it.

It's cute, it's emotionally engaging, it has love and found family and action-packed scenes and all in all, it doesn't matter that there are a few plotholes here and there or that Nate falls into the well-known "I'm literally scared for my life but damn look at his muscles" kind of instalust trap. It just makes you feel good in the end, despite the heartbreak, the grief and the dangers lurking behind every corner.
So in conclusion? Dear Art, I would also always go on an adventure with you.
4 stars.

The Bones beneath my skins is a heartwarming read. Nate, grieving his parents, heads to his family’s cabin and meets Alex and Artemis Darth Vader.
This is more than a sci-fi adventure. It’s a touching story about love, loss, and the families we create.
Another 5⭐️ read by this accomplished author.

Tj Klune’s writing has a way of tugging on your heartstrings, making you question what humanity is, experience a deep sense of friendship and family all between two covers and this book is just the same.

I did not expect a lot starting this, didn’t know a lot about it, and yet it hit every bar possible. It’s hilarious and action packed, the characters Nate, Alex and Artemis Darth Vader are so deep with feeling and love and you just can’t help but get attached.

The romance starts small and is slowly developing at a pace I really appreciate, you fall in love with the characters at the same time they do with each other. It’s weird in just the right way, action packed and both grieving and hilarious. It will have you sobbing and giggling at the same time.

It’s one of those you can’t put down, you must know what happens next, it got helicopters falling for the sky, gun wielding strangers in the middle of nowhere, culty people, shady government organizations and a found family fighting to protect each other with a love so intense you feel it clear as day.

Juggling the feeling of loss and grief with newfound love this book gets a clear 5 star from me.

5⭐

Wow. It has been some time since a book has made me cry so hard that I can no longer read the words on the page - it might even have beeen another TJ Klune that accomplished the feat last! TJK has such a distinctively beautiful, emotive style of storytelling, wrapped in farfetched worlds of sci-fi and fantasy, but so deeply rooted in our most present feelings and values.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me this ARC in exchange for a review - a rerelease of a previously independent publication.
This book is bonkers - the author admits this himself in his concluding author's note - it is actions and aliens. The reader is brought into the world of Artemis Darth Vader, a ten year old, and her fearsome protector, Alex, through the medium of Nate. This character is grieving, though we learn that it's not as simple as it might seem, and throws his life to the wind when he gets tangled in the troublesome pair's problems. He is nervous, afraid, confused. His life is in danger multiple times before he really understands why. But he watches a little girl try bacon for the first time, walks through a field of blooming flowers and slowly, all at once, the unlikely trio become a family in the most meaningful sense of the world.
The Bones Beneath My Skin is about aliens... kind of. Mostly it's about all the heartbreaking, joyful, confusing, romantic parts of being human.
Finally, the climatic scene near the end made me feel SICK whilst horrifically sobbing. 5 STARS.

This book was so cute! As per usual another delightful novel by T.J.Klune. In this we follow Nate as he’s recently lost his parents and was left with a truck and their old cabin. In there he finds Alex and Art, a man and a young girl running away from something. While trying to navigate living together, they get closer; just as danger also closes on them. Will they be able to find a way out without losing each other in the mean time?
I loved all the three characters in this, as per usual they were super endearing and lovely, even Alex and his silent treatments. The plot was super fun, especially when it picked up around the halfway. The writing style as per usual also was super easy to read and fun!
Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for giving me a e-arc in exchange of an honest review.

SO beautiful, SO heartwarming but I didn’t expect anything less

I always go into books blind, sometimes that makes things confusing but other times, it makes the story so much better and this was one of those times.

As always, Klune writes some beautiful characters, all of which I want to be friends with. Nate and Art and Alex are just wonderful individually but even better when they’re together.

This was another incredible story of found family and what it means to be human. It will hold a special place in my heart forever.

Having read quite a few of TJ Klune’s books I was expecting a gentle, funny enemies-to-lovers plot. Prepare for something very different! An action movie in book form, this was a fast moving, thrilling adventure with characters you’ll fall in love with. Some may call it weird, I call it awesome.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC.

The Bones Beneath My Skin is such a good story. This book is a masterpiece!!! So so good. I loved every single second of it. I totally recommend everyone to read this book as fast as they can because it's really good and the characters are fantastic.

This is a high 4 for me. On one hand I’m not into sci fi alien stories but on the other hand TJ Kline is an amazing author with a talent for telling stories in the most beautiful ways.
Thank you NetGalley for letting me read and review.

It's been a while since I have been so excited about reading a book. TJ Klune has quickly become an author that I will read without question when he has a book coming out, each book better and stronger than the last. The characters in The Bones Beneath My Skin are so deeply built and explored, you can tell how much love the author put into them. Art, Nate and Alex all have this weakness that becomes stronger when they're together, the need for love without realising just how vital it is works in both a familial sense as a trio but also romantically between our leads.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC for reviewing.

TJ Klune is always an automatic read for me, so when I was invited to read this early, I was so excited!! And whilst this story is very different from Klune’s normal works.. it did not disappoint!!
Different in a good way, may I add!! And more so the fact that this book is more conspiracy theory/space/action/military than any of his previous works. But as always, Kline writes witty characters with big hearts and the themes of self discovery as well as found family are ever present. I loved the ‘what does it mean to be human?’ Side of this book too! And seeing the 3 main characters grow together and learn to accommodate and love each other was such a sweet read!
There was also at least one Easter egg in there too which I got excited about!! 😂

Another amazing 5 star read!

Wow. Just wow. I absolutely loved this read, it was honestly the fastest I’ve read a book for a while because I just couldn’t stop! Honestly an author that never disappoints. It wasn’t the story I was expecting, but it was brilliant. I want to keep this completely spoiler free so I’ll stop there!