The Particulars: Urban Fantasy, Angry Robot, available as print and e-book.
The source: purchased at Robot Trading Company
The Grade: D
The blurb:
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.
The Review:
I have been curious about this book for a long time, so when Angry Robot had an 50% off sale, I decided to take the chance.
It was refreshing to read an Urban Fantasy that was set outside the US. The hustle and bustle of Joburg flowed through the page, and there were times I could hear her talking with the street vendors or her boyfriend. What I liked were the contrasts between the rundown apartment were Zinzi lived, and the luxious house her client lived in.
I liked the concept of the animalled, and how you got an spirit animal if you committed a serious crime. It felt right that some people disliked them, and other loved them.
I liked the characters, from Zinzi with her bad habits, to the spoiled pop stars she had to deal with. There was mix of desperation and hope in this book that gave me goosebumps.
That said, I had lot of problems with the plot. I found the plot to be confusing, and I couldn’t follow her motivations. One reason for that feeling might be the excerpts from articles that was scattered through the book. They annoyed me, and jarred me out from the book.
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