Lies of a Toymaker

Thank you to LibraryThing for sending me an ARC of this book. This brutally honest review and the opinions within are my own.
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This is a book that treats the reader like an idiot.


Plot points happen WAY too conveniently. My biggest gripe/example is the main character clearly fleeing the scene of a crime, being allowed to hop into a random van of musicians parked outside in the middle of the night, then the driver/singer just happens to be some sort of magic singer who works for the toy shop, who also happens to know exactly who her long-lost father is and can take her to him first thing in the morning, and oh btw she happens to be MC’s grandmother too and didn’t tell her because she “didn’t ask”???


Also, this book is show more positively riddled with unnecessary details, breaking up the pace in a bad way, not trusting the reader to use any imagination. A slew of specific colors in a room are often thrown at you, as well as detailed outfits, in a way that forces you to to stop and craft this EXACT image the author wants you to see, rather than providing rough details and an atmosphere and letting the reader craft the rest of the image in their mind. What happened to show don’t tell? Also, specific smells were described so frequently it became one of those things that once you notice, it sticks out way too much.


On top of all that, I would not describe this as dark, and it’s not even fantasy until about midway, where it takes a sharp 180 into major fantasy and dumps a ton of exposition on you by literally telling the MC everything.


Also SIX different POVs, none of which feel truly unique or necessary. I found myself rolling my eyes even more when one of them was in second person.


This book is terribly rough around the edges. I thought ‘oh, that’s what ARCs are for, so debut authors can get some feedback and grow!’ But alas, this is not a debut novel, and the author should know better by now. The concept is great - the MC slowly turning into wood?! So cool! Too bad it barely bothered her when it started.


Oh, and this was barely a queer story, either. The MC and another character (and two side characters) happen to be lesbians, but the meet-cute and any romantic tension are missing. The MC meets her love interest and then they don’t even see each other again for quite some time.
I gave it my best shot. show less

I did not like this book, which is a shame. The premise of it greatly interested me, but the execution was sub-par. I do not know what the lie of the toymaker is, though it's apparently very important. I felt like the beginning dragged and then everything else was rushed. I do not understand the purpose of the two girls who helped Paige break into the Toy Palace. The writing style was lyrical, which frequently only served to greater confuse me. I also do not know where Paige's personality change came from. I think this would've been better as a duology, where the first book was in the human world and ended when Paige entered the Toy World and the second book covered Paige's growth in the Toy World and Petta's journey to get her back. I show more also felt like Lilly was an unnecessary character. If she was taken out of the book, nothing would've changed. The relationship between her and Paige makes no sense given that they had one conversation with each other and Paige passed out during it. There was a lot of potential for this book, but it was wasted.

Thank you to Three Rooms Press and LibraryThing for the gifted copy. show less

"Lies of a Toymaker" is an example of a book that I felt has a lot of potential in terms of premise, but had flaws in terms of execution. The beginning is intriguing and draws you in as you wander into a new "Pinocchio," one where Gepetto is now Petta, a female artist who wanders from place to place with her daughter Paige creating wooden creations. The descriptions of the toys she comes up with is captivating, and is effective at building atmosphere. Unfortunately, this magic does not last long, and disappears once the book introduces the fairies and the land of Toys.



Normally, I would state that the majority YA duologies/trilogies convolute what could be a much simpler story in the interest of selling more copies. This book, however, I show more felt was one that needed more time and pages to flesh out the universe it was attempting to create. The introduction to the major conflict of the book against the Deathsprites is largely based on one chapter of exposition that consists of literal telling and not showing.



From there, the book enters into a breakneck pace, introducing characters that appear to formulate relationships from literally thin air (and perhaps one or two sentences). For example, the character of Cricket, a plastic bug to stand in for old Jiminy, comes out of nowhere and with no explanation of how or when, develops a lasting alliance with our Blue Fairy Alexio and a deep friendship with Paige. I couldn't help but feel that the author perhaps had a great story with several more chapters of interactions and adventures that fed into the story that somehow got cut from the final product. Otherwise, I felt lost as to how a reader was supposed to follow along with how or why these characters were so deeply bonded in such a short period of book time.



Overall, I felt myself walking away from this book with more questions than answers than I expected from a story that was supposed to be a feminist retelling of "Pinocchio." For example, <spoiler> what happened to the whole ending storyline of Petta dying? It appears to have been left unresolved. How did a romance between Paige and the store manager develop over what was likely an hour's interaction and less chemistry than Paige had with the two girls that helped her pull off the heist? What was the purpose of the "toy resurecctionist" character's perspective when it appeared to have had very little effect on the overall ending? And what was the purpose/how was Alexio supposed to have made his return in the final chapter?</spoiler> All of these are examples of how I felt this book was missing some puzzle pieces to make this story go from "ok but confusing" to the epic fantasy it deserved to be.



Thanks to Three Rooms Press for allowing me to read a free copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. show less

There is so much being thrown at the reader without development or the time needed for them to feel natural. Major aspects of the worldbuilding and the main conflict are brushed past in rapid-fire exposition. The main characters are altered to fit what the plot needs at the time, but they aren’t really character arcs; there’s no exploration of why, from a character perspective, these changes occur. It left me feeling like there was no continuity between the characters at the story's beginning versus the middle versus the end and thus they didn’t have much character at all. Similarly, relationships between characters were told to the reader — ‘these characters are friends now’, ‘these characters are falling in love’ — show more with little to back it up.
I could not become invested in any part of the story with this storytelling style. show less

Ugg, I was really hoping I was going to like this one. Lies of a Toymaker is advertised as a queer retelling of Pinocchio. While there are many characters that are taken directly from the original, or with marginal changes, the story itself is so different to Pinocchio that I found myself questioning how well I knew the original story myself. Had it merely been advertised as "inspired by" Pinocchio, I do not think I would have as much of a problem with it.

While it does bring up themes of what makes someone a human and growing through adversity, it never really delves into these themes in any meaningful way. While Paige does undergo a major transition partway through the book, we never see her grow or change in character. The entire show more book, she only does things because she has to, but never actually because that is what she chose for herself. We don't even see her long enough to see what she is able to learn from her experiences either.

Additionally, there were so many POV characters, 6 to be exact, that we never really got to know any of the characters in any meaningful capacity. Some of the POV characters we only saw their perspective a couple of times, so we were not able to even get to know them as an individual, much less how they interacted with the world around them and how they were able to change throughout the book. Had we not gotten POV's of some of them, and only saw them through another character, I would not have minded as much. Take The Doctor, for example, who went through no character growth during the book, but we still had his POV. His sections did nothing to advance the plot and he was never even a developed character, so it did not make sense for there to be even a couple chapters devoted to his POV.

Overall, I'm pretty disappointed with this book since I was really hoping to like it.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me an advance reader copy of the book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers. All opinions are my own. show less

The premise of this book is fun and clever, which is saying something, because I am not a huge fan of fairy tale retellings generally. I appreciated the strong FMC and LGBTQ representation, although I did find Paige’s character to fall a bit flat and her reactions to situations often made no sense. She didn’t seem to have strong motivations and instead made whatever choice was convenient to move the narrative forward, regardless of whether or not the choice made sense for her character contextually.
This book would have benefited from a prologue to ease the reader into the world. I found the beginning of the book to be disorienting, with far too much environmental description in the first couple of chapters and not enough actual show more exposition.
This wasn’t a bad book by any means, but stronger characterization and a good prologue would have elevated it to something special. show less

Sweet story with a twist. I liked the writing style and found the characters interesting.