Zoo City by Lauren Beukes What is it about:
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 paycheck, 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 teenybop pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass and their animal companions live in the shadow of hell’s undertow.
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.
What did I think of it:
This looked like it would be a great read at first. Intriguing, original setting, feisty, but likeable heroine, well written (even while it's written in present tense), but in the end this story fell flat for me.
I'm willing to go a long way in taking things at face value when it comes to paranormal/supernatural occurences, but Beukes managed to stretch things a bit too far for my tastes. When something supernatural happens to such a select and well defined group of people as in Zoo City I'm not going to take 'it just happened' as an answer, I want an explanation besides all the wild speculations from the characters to keep believing in the story. And while I already was impatient for not having things explained, the story hit me with occurences that were just too out of there to make sense to me. So in the end this book left me with a feeling of bewilderment and disappointment.
Why should you read it:
It's well written and has a very original setting.
3 comments:
That is exactly what hold me back. I talked with someone about it and this seems like it is something I couldn't accept either.
Damn, the cover is kind of pretty. ;)
If there had been a believable explanation I could have bought it, but now it felt tailored to me.
Sorry that it felt flat for you. It does has a pretty cover. Too bad the writer forgot to mention the reasons why. :)
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