Book info

• Title Zoo City
• Author Lauren Beukes
• Year 2010
• Genre Fantasy

Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheque, she's forced to take on her least favourite kind of job - missing persons. Being hired by reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass and their animal companions reside. Instead it catapults Zinzi deeper into the maw of a city twisted by crime and magic, where she'll be forced to confront the dark secrets of former lives - including her own.

Thoughts

I stumbled across this book in a HumbleBundle so had absolutely no preconceptions of what it was about or what it would be like. I really enjoyed it! It has a great style, particularly as the story is about magic but it reigns it in. Rather than being of the Harry Potter style of all-out fantasy, this has heaps more realism, tied in with quite a lot of violence.

It’s hard to know where to place your allegiances, because none of the characters are particularly friendly, and all of them are flawed to a high degree. The only one who really seems okay is Sloth, and I’m not sure that counts. This is a world where people who have done bad things wind up with an animal as a companion, which in turn sets them apart in the social scene. There’s vague magic at work, but this is really about crime and navigating an almost disturbing plot set amongst drugs and rock and roll.

Regardless, it was a fascinating book, well-written and completely engaging. It wasn’t unputdownable, didn’t keep me up at night, but there were plenty of times when I didn’t want to stop reading, because I wanted to know what was going to happen next, how it was all going to turn out. Recommended as a slightly odd, off-beat but interesting read.

Rating: 5 / 5