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psychohobbit 's review for:
Zoo City
by Lauren Beukes
This gritty genre-bending mystery is a wonderfully inventive mash up as Zinzi, a finder of missing things and part time scammer, is on the skids (granted that's pretty much cliche) when she becomes involved in something she doesn't want to be involved in (again cliche but this is how stories are built). How the story is told and the imaginative twists from modern day, but still oh so close to modern day if one knows Johannesburg, South Africa, (I don't so it's exotic to me and I suspect many readers) make this alternate history mixed with fantasy fresh and unique. Zinzi has a permanent companion, a sloth, that gives her an ability to locate lost items. Although those attached to animals each have a unique ability, it's also a stigma that 'normal' people want as little contact as possible. Hence, the title Zoo City, the rundown area where Zinzi lives. I was teetering between rating this 4 or 5 but chose 5 because of the very interesting essay at the end of this edition. In it, the author discusses the research she did for this book including visiting sites in Johannesburg that sound as rundown and desperate (minus people with attached animal companions) as some of the book's settings. That research definitely added to this book as well as her ability to portray it through the written word.