Zoo City

This is a hard one... There happened so much that I don't have any clue what happened. I am not sure that I managed to catch up with this book. BUT, I like the main character! So I concentrated on her. She was cute and determined and just unlucky in so many situations but at the same time she was smart!
I must say I struggled with the accents! Took me a while to get used to them but then I went to work and when I started again I faced the same challenge.
All in all I believe that this kind of genre is not for me.

Zinzi December grew up rich and privileged, but her drug addiction led to the death of her brother and jail time. Now she lives in Zoo City, the ghetto for the animalled--people who are guilty of something so bad that an inexplicable force gave them an animal, which they are connected to for life. They cannot be separated from their animal without great pain. Animals are a source of shame and social stigma, and with a sloth in tow, Zinzi is forced out of journalism and into working odd jobs. With her creditor making increasing demands, she decides to take a lost persons case.

This is an unexpectedly lively book, with a strong, unique voice to the main character. The Johannesburg of the future is a bustling contrast of wealth and poverty, technology and old magics. Zinzi's friends and contacts are each interesting puzzles in their own right. The action is bloody, the magic rightfully scary, and the plot as twisted as classic noir. It was all too grim for my taste, but the darkness felt earned, not pasted on to earn cool points. (My one real caveat is the last chapter, which feels a little abrupt.)

Excellent world building in this novel. Doesn't spell everything out for you so there are some unanswered questions. Brutal and haunting in places. Enjoyable protagonist presented warts and all. Highly recommend.

Excellent world building in this novel. Doesn't spell everything out for you so there are some unanswered questions. Brutal and haunting in places. Enjoyable protagonist presented warts and all. Highly recommend.

Loved the world building in this book! it had such an interesting concept and a lot could be done with it. Zinzi is such a great character with her attitude and her street smarts. She's definitely got some flaws but they go great with her character.The plot itself is really good and interesting, but it has its' shortcomings. You got a murder mystery to solve with Zinzi which is all good and interesting. Yet all of a sudden she's pulled into a missing persons case (she has a talent for finding lost items)So there's two things to solve. It's a bit choppy in places, and not as smooth of a pace and plot as I like it to be. You're pulled back and forth in between these two cases and when you acquire a vested interest on one of the cases, it sucks you back to remind you of the other one. It sort of interrupts the pacing of the plot, and not the best way to loop these two things together. Great concept for an urban fantasy world, but the plot needed more work in terms of pacing and fluidity. Still a good read, wish there was more after this one!

Zoo City - this is the place where the animalled live - these are people who have been linked to an animal of some sort because of a crime committed in the past.

Zinzi December is linked to a sloth. She has a knack for finding lost objects and is currently running an spam email service in a vain attempt to clear her debts. She normally avoids looking for people as it is too much hassle, but when offered the chance to look for one half of a pop duo she accepts.

As she closes in on her quarry, she unwittingly uncovers a series of murders, and has closer brushes with the law and the criminal underworld.

Wasn't sure about this first, the animal links are weird to say the least, but Beukes has created a unique urban fantasy novel, with this new Johannesburg as an edgy, wired place. The plot twists and picks up the pace nicely and the last part of the book zips by.

MMD Reading Challenge 2017- For Fun
Category: Book chosen for the cover

I really don't read a lot of urban fantasy, but this cover just grabbed me, and that is what this category is all about! I really enjoyed this. It was very well-written, and hard to put down. The language is pretty graphic at times as is the violence, which mostly happens in the second part of the book. It was set in an alternative Johannesburg "ghetto" in South Africa, though, so it wasn't really unnecessary, just too descriptive for me at times. The ending was sad, but still hopeful. Zoo City is the name of the ghetto where "Zoos", people who have committed a serious crime and have an Animal counterpart linked to them as a result. It has more to do with guilt of the individual than a specific crime. The magic system was very unique, at times creepy, but always engaging. I would really like to see a sequel to this book.

4.5 stars. An excellent book, with memorable characters and fantastic world building.

Oh this is so very, very good.

You need to read it.

What was this? I really liked The Shining Girls, and based my high expectations on that. This was nothing like The Shining Girls. This was just a young adult thing with the animal stuff, not particularly inventive or fascinating. All that was interersting was left to the sidelines and all that was not was brought to the center. I am reconsidering my taste, apparently I have none.

Lauren Beukes is becoming one of my favorite authors. She is a dark, gritty writer. She tells the story so well and I love how everything unfolds. I hope that she writes another book with Zinzi and her sloth. I really liked her story and would love to read more about her ability to find missing things. Can't wait to read her next book!

Well what a disappointment. A great idea for a parallel South Africa where society's rejects are paired mystically with animals operating as consciences and more. And there is no doubt that Lauren Beukes can write. Her descriptive work is clever and fresh.But is there a plot here? Hard to follow. Perhaps intentionally. But the search for the missing twins is not very engaging. And then the climax is a bloody mess. A let down, really.

Lauren Beukes is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. In this sort of fantasy, Kinzi December, recovering addict, is part of the underclass in South Africa, getting by by finding lost things for clients and running email scams for the lowlife she owes a lot of money. She's also living with the stigma of being animalled, a fascinating concept that that threads through the novel and gives it a lot of its specialness. In Kinzi's case, the animal she's been bonded with is a sloth, and I must admit, I grew quite fond of Sloth over the course of the book.Kinzi's desperate financial situation leads her to take a missing person's case, and that's when things go from bad to worse. Tasked by a sleazy music mogul to find the missing teenaged girl half of a hot duo (the other half is her twin brother), Kinzi is drawn deeper and deeper into a weird conspiracy, complicated by the furry conscience she must carry around on her back. To say more would give too much away.Beukes' prose brings this world to life and Kinzi is a strong, flawed protagonist with a lot of heart who sometimes is her own worst enemy. I'd love to read a sequel.

Review Summary: I have rarely read a book that I so thoroughly enjoyed and admired - and this comes from someone with a degree in Literature working postgrad in Classics!

Full Review: Zinzi December is in a heap of trouble, and not just with the police. She's got a guilty conscience, gets forced by poverty and desperation into working for an even guiltier group of people, trying to uncover a guilty secret before the guilty get her killed or locked up.


Zoo City is not only an incredible adventure and first-rate Urban Fantasy, it also regards issues of prejudice, muti (South African traditional medicine controversial for its occasional use of human body parts), substance abuse, immigration, poverty, crime and punishment and what people are willing do for success and money. However, it regards these issues with so light a hand that you almost don't notice yourself thinking about these things until a few days later.

Using a first person present tense narrative is something that takes guts in spades, something which very few writers can pull of successfully, but Lauren Beukes rises to the challenge with seemingly effortless ease and grace. I think that the frequent breaks in the narrative by way of newspaper reports, magazine articles and other informative pieces provide just the correct amount of distance and explanation to keep the story fresh and fast-paced without feeling overdone or fake. The present tense gives this story a feeling of immediacy and urgency, while the first person draws you right into the thoughts, secrets and actions of the protagonist, Zinzi - and what a brilliant protagonist she is!

Zinzi is an amazingly complete and compelling character - smart, intelligent, cynic and brave, she's flawed, in some ways very deeply so, but these very flaws strengthen her credibility. Zinzi grew up comfortably as a member of one of South Africa's emerging black upper-middle class, to go to university and become a respected journalist and develop a nasty drug habit. However, as she says, that is her Former Life, before she had Sloth.

In this alternative version of Johannesburg in 2011, those who have committed a crime find their guilt manifested in the form of a symbiotic animal magically tied to them (or at least, that's one theory; the appearance of aposymbiots is rather recent, still being studied and not fully understood) and granting them minor, mostly useless gifts, called shavi.

The animals are referred to as mashavi and with an Animal comes the Undertow - a cloud of blackness that will sooner or later swallow and/or obliterate the Animalled person. You can never be certain of when the Undertow will take you, for take you it will, eventually. The only thing you can be certain about is that if your Animal dies, the Undertow will come for almost instantaneously; yet while your Animal remains alive you're still living on borrowed time.

Some of the examples of shavi mentioned includes being able to find the scene of a murder, being charming, shielding from magic and inciting or heightening lust slightly. Zinzi's mashavi is Sloth, and her shavi is to see the connections people have to their "lost things" - small objects of personal value to the person in question that may or may not be currently lost.

Zinzi can see either the person with a cloud of the objects important to that person tied to them in a way which she describes as "a thread" between the person and the objects. So, it follows that when touching an object that's important to someone, she can feel the "thread" pulling the object back to the person, and then it's just a matter of following the sometimes frustratingly frail thread and finding the person who lost something for some quick cash and the ability to eat that night.

Now "Animalled" and therefore marked as a criminal and possibly dangerous to the rest of society, struggling to find work, acceptance and absolution, Zinzi's living in the most dangerous of neighbourhoods surrounded by the most desperate denizens of society and making ends meet (and trying to repay her drug debts) by writing letters for 419 scams and hoping to stumble across things people lost that are valuable enough that the person would pay her for returning it.

This is how she ends up being suspected of murder, being contacted by dodgy individuals working for a huge-name music producer with a questionable past and looking for a teenaged superstar that no one must know has gone missing. As if that's not enough, her lover just found out that his wife and children didn't die in the DRC civil war, as he had thought, with the always-present additional threat of the Undertow.

I do have some very slight criticisms, mainly because I'm a detail-oriented control freak: I'd have liked to know what exactly the aposymbiosis is - is it a manifestation of guilt? If it is, why is it that some sociopaths who feel no guilt over their crimes still find themselves Animalled? And if it's not, why is it that only those guilty of the most grievous of crimes have one? And who decides what makes up those crimes that deserve an Animal?

Also, why are all the Animals written in Capital Letters? I don't know about you, but when I see Capital Letters strewn around like that, I hear the words spoken in the booming voice of a Cecil B. Demille version of God, although I'm fully willing to admit that that is my own issue and has absolutely nothing to do with the merits of the book. Still, it's a bit jarring to read about this one's Cobra and that one's Butterfly and that one's Hyena, etc. with constantly booming echoes.

I will also admit that I was at first slightly uncomfortable with the thought of a white woman writing the personal narrative of a black woman, especially in this society of ours in this time we find ourselves.

Lauren Beukes explains it beautifully and sensibly in a guest post for The World SciFi Blog, arguing that when we write, we are basically always writing the other, using our imagination to fill in the gaps of that which we didn't actually live and experience, but which our characters did.

This is a completely valid point of view which makes a lot of sense and which I fully support, although I myself would not yet feel comfortable writing in the voice of a black person in South Africa (which is most probably a personal failing!), given my historical and very often very largely invisible privileges that came with growing up white mostly in post-Apartheid South Africa (including but not limited to: being able to study by electricity, living in a house, never going to bed hungry, never having to go without blankets and sweaters and shoes winter because there just isn't money to buy it, etc. etc. which, unfortunately, is still the predominant experience of most South Africans in a society in which the chances of your suffering abject poverty increase dramatically the darker your skin is), but I truly admire Lauren for her braveness, integrity and dedication in worrying, in her words, more about whether Zinzi was Zinzi enough than worrying about whether she was black enough.

Despite these nitpicks, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It was not only a great read, it was a thoughtful read, without shoving its thoughtfulness down your throat or hitting you over the head with it at all. The writing, too, is beautifully crafted with some unexpectedly hilarious and unpretentiously sensitive and touching moments. The setting comes alive through Lauren Beukes' incredibly vivid descriptions and the slums of the city of Johannesburg almost becomes its own character in this book, which I found delightful (and envy-worthy! How many writers can do that, seriously?).

I don't know what else to say about without spoiling the book, so I'll stop here and just say: this book, although not for the overly sensitive or young, is amazing, if you're willing to deal with some hard facts of reality when reading. The characters are full and real, the setting is so familiar (at least to me :) ) and yet so filled with new and strange things that it remains eternally fascinating, and the story is a fast-paced edge-of-your-seat whirlwind which will keep the adrenaline pumping to the very last page. Also, I'd just like to add, I thought the ending was amazing. I'm hard pressed to think of another character that I loved and admired as much as I loved and admired Zinzi in those last couple of paragraphs.

Read it as soon as you possibly can - and please let me know what you thought of it! Even if it is months or years later and you absolutely hated it, I truly want to know.

This is a book I'll be reading again and again and again, and I hope the same is true for you.

Zoo City is one of the most inventive urban fantasies I’ve read. It was an engrossing book with plenty to keep me interested, although I found the ending to be weak.Zinzi is an animalled – a person for whom the shadows rise up out of the earth to give an animal after they commit a crime. If the animal dies, the shadows will rise out of the earth again and take the animalled with it. In Zinzi’s case, she’s got a dead brother and a sloth.The set up of the “animalled” is very interesting and what makes the story so unique. The animal is like a physical representation of their past sins, but it’s up in the air whether the animal is meant to punish or rehabilitate.The one bonus of being an “animalled” is that each one comes with a gift. For Zinzi, it’s a knack to find lost things, which is one of the ways in which she makes her living. The plot thus revolves around her tracking down a missing pop star with ensuing complications.The concept was definitely the greatest thing about the book. Zinzi, a black South African woman trained as a journalist, was a fairly enjoyable antihero, and while I may never have connected to her very closely, I liked reading about her. The setting of Johannesburg was also aptly captured.The plot is the weakest point. It was serviceable for the most part, but ultimately let me down at the end. I think that an ending needs some sense of achievement or conclusion, of which Zoo City had neither. The mystery may have been solved, but little of it’s end result related to Zinzi. Nor does her character arc provide any sense of growth or satisfaction. In short, there was not a sense of fulfillment. If this was a series, the ending might make sense, but it does not work within the context of a stand alone novel.I would recommend Zoo City to people looking for an unique urban fantasy story. Despite the weak ending, I found it overall enjoyable and would recommend it.Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.

Now, it's believed that cases of the animalled may date back to as early as the mid-'80s, based on anthropological reports coming out of New Guinea, Mali and the Philippines. The earliest recorded case, uncovered in retrospect, was that of notorious Australian thug Kevin Warren, who was gunned down by police during an aborted bank heist in Brisbane with his 'pet' wallaby in 1986.This is the best urban fantasy book I have read in a long time, not least because the characters and the Johannesburg setting seem so grounded in reality that it doesn't really read like fantasy at all.I don't want to say much about the story because I loved it so much and wouldn't like to spoil it for anyone, but I was left wondering what effect the animalled phenomenon had on pets. Have dogs in particular fallen in popularity because people don't want to be mistaken for a zoo when they are taking their dog for a walk? Someone who is accompanied by a sloth or a marabou crane is obviously a zoo, but I am not sure whether everyone could tell at a glance whether that the man with the maltese terrier was animalled and not just a dog-lover, Vuyo insists on meeting me at Kaldi's coffee shop in Newtown, the funkified art, theatre, design and fashion capital of the inner city. They burned this neighborhood down in the early 1900s to prevent the spread of bubonic plague, and it occurs to me that they should consider doing it again, to purge the blight of well-meaning hipsters desperately trying to paint it rainbow. I should really try to be less cynical.

There's an intriguing central idea, vivid world-building and a lot of grunge here, but I found myself liking it a lot less than The Shining Girls. Zinzi never quite came to life for me; for all her adventures and cynical asides, I never felt I knew what made her tick. As the plot gathered pace and twists, it also lost coherency. The second part in particular felt disjointed, and the finale was both dispiriting (no pun intended) and ultimately unbelievable (how exactly did she talk her way out of all that?). If this had been my first Beukes novel I'd chalk it up as interesting, but I probably wouldn't try any others. Marks for trying.

Utterly fantastic Johannesburg murder-mystery urban fantasy. December is a wonderfully compelling character and her Sloth is adorable; the plot has just the right number of twists and the worldbuilding is spectacular.

Considering my love of the His Dark Materials trilogy from my childhood, I was very shocked that I hadn't heard of this book before. In fact, if it weren't for the Humble eBook Bundle that happened a while ago, I wouldn't have. A really nice grown-up take on guilt and crime and horrible mistakes and situations in a really very vibrant setting. Manages to world-build without drowning you in lots of flowery descriptive text, like a lot of writing I enjoy. Also nice to see some urban-ish fantasy not sent in like London or America for a change, since the setting is around Johannesburg, South Africa.

Really highly recommend this!

Urban Science Fiction Criminals acquire animal familiars (it happens right after the crime is committed) and most acquire a unique “gift”, as well. Zinzi can track items but can she track a missing person? Does she even want to? From the slums to high society she must find the girl or live in debt the rest of her life.

Set in South Africa. Fascinating concept withe well developed characters and interesting plot devices.

I didn't think I would enjoy reading urban fantasy about people with magical animal companions, but I actually liked this book a lot! I haven't read many books set in South Africa, so that was interesting, and the action-y detective-style plot was very engaging. I particularly liked the reports, transcripts and film summaries scattered throughout the book to give a bit more background information and world-building - it reminded me a bit of World War Z in that respect, sometimes, as well as giving the author the opportunity to say "don't worry, I have heard of Philip Pullman".

Great book, but pretty dark.

I found the premise of this book highly interesting: for an unknown reason, anyone commiting a crime starts to become "animaled".That is, a given animal joins them and they get a power (seems a bit unfair that you'd get a power from commiting a crime, but there you go). If the animal dies, you are then killed by the undertow (which seemed to me like a version of the LOST smoke monster). Since being animaled is very conspicuous (they have their animals with them at all times) there is a huge rejection by society. Couple all this with an investigation set in Johannesbourgh and you have a very interesting SF book.The book also has some interesting "formats", including online reviews, chats, interview transcriptions etc. as an intergral part of the story. I'm sure this must add to the reading experience. Unfortunately, I "read" this book as an audiobook, so this bits became quite disconcerting. My recommendation would be to go for the physical book and avoid the audio version in this case. Provably it is safer to avoid kindle as well.

Enjoyed Moxyland but not sure I buy into the premise of this one - you do something wrong and you magically get a familiar/spirit animal and magic powers? What? There might have been a decent cyberpunk novel lurking in there somewhere but this one's not working for me - too messy, a lot of leaps of logic that don't make sense.Tiptree longlist 2011

Why did I read this book

I have wanted to read this book for some time. However, The hype that surrounded it made me hesitate. But, It's constant appearance on award lists encouraged me to finally dig it off the to be read shelves and read it.

enjoyability 1 star
I was pleasantly surprised. For once, the book lived up to the hype. It was an interesting, disturbing and emotive read.

Accessibility 1 star

This is a relatively new book and therefore it's available in most formats. The E book (Kindle version) was good quality.

world building 1 star

The world of this book is a believable one. You are instantly immersed in the dingy, corrupt, future world, that will be South Africa.

language 1 star

The language mirrors the narrators character well, being grungy (street) enough to be believable, and of place, while still managing to be understandable.

Thematic Content 1 star

This books looks at issues of guilt and identity

What a pleasantly dark and creative fantasy and mystery, set in Johannesburg, all slangy and urban slummy and vividly described. It has a real sense of place. It takes Philip Pullman's Golden Compass series idea of "daemons" and turns it inside out and creepy. Zinzi December is an educated young woman - and black, I think, not so common in the fantasy world - with a sloth as her animal (daemon). She spent some time in jail, you see, and these days, animal spirits turn up to accompany who commit a dark act. The "Zoo Plague" started happening some years back and the "Animalled" experience lots of prejudice, as you might imagine.

Zinzi grew up well off and worked as a journalist, but then things went wrong for her. Now, along with acquiring Sloth, she has a gift (or curse) that lets her track down lost things, and a bad part time gig writing 419/Nigerian scam type emails. When she's broke and on a job for a little old lady who then turns up dead, Zinzi is forced to take on a job for a scummy music producer to find a lost young pop musician girl. She finds her bad habits, cynicism and her conscience warring with each other as she turns detective to find out what's really going on.

I really liked the concept of this book and I really liked the main character. I was considering adding this book to my prestigious list of favourite books, but then it got bad. Really the book didn't need part 2. It was only 1/5th of the book and it would have been better with out it. Characters I didn't think were important make an appearance. Apparently there is a serial killer? Some complex voodoo ritual, in vain?[spoiler alert]Every one dies? I took her most of the book to to solve the first mystery, I wish the second, and potentially more interesting part had been developed more. I don't really understand what was going on.

Weird, almost urban fantasy but with more of a SF feel to it. The basic premise is that back in '96 (or so no-one knows for sure) there was a moment of epiphany and anyone since then who committed some form or serious crime, (which involves them feeling guilt) gained a phyiscal incarnation of that guilt - and animal soulmate. The species of animal doesn't seem to relate to anything inparticular - neithercrime nor background nor geography. They have to care for this animal - if it dies before then they get swalloed up by a black cloud - the Undertow. At the same time they also gain a magical power of some minor form. I think although it wasn't explicitly clear that mgaic entered the world at the same moment. The animalled are naturally shuned from the remaining polite society although there are plenty of shared arenas.Our particular heroine was a high living music journalist. Now she's living in a shanty town near Jo'berg off of her ability to find things. Her animal is a Sloth, which doens't do mcuh except eat leaves. TBC

This seemed to me to be a great idea book. The author had a great idea (and the idea I liked, criminals with spirit animals is a rather cool idea, the creation of an othering by way of a visible burden of an animal, cool) but I didn't care for the characters and by the end of it didn't really care who lived or died. There were moments where I stopped and the book made me think about a big idea or it had me think of ways I would have done things but I found that that almost got in the way of the story instead of making it flow for me. It took me a while to read the book, with a few others interrupting it, and there was a few times that I almost had to force myself to keep going.Am I sorry I read it? No. Is it my kind of read? No. Will I be reading more by this author? I doubt it.