Zoo City

I'm averaging here. 5 stars for interesting, beautiful writing and zero stars for plot. 2.5 stars.

Ok, this book might have improved. I read a little over a third of it, all the while expecting that if I read just a little more the book would 'pick up' a little and grab my attention. But ultimately I realized that a third of the way in if it hadn't drawn me into it yet I'd given it more than a fair chance. I do like Beuke's writing style. It is fresh and modern feeling and enjoyable, but her plot if really lacking. It was just... well, boring. The setting and world was interesting but the plot was slow and dull. The characters weren't very likable either.

I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading this... everyone has their own tastes and at least I will say that I genuinely enjoyed Beuke's style and would be willing to try another book by her with, hopefully, a better plot.

-The best thing about this book is the world building. It treats fantastical elements as being matter of fact and as a result the setting seems realistic and interesting. The concept of animal companions marking the guilty is so strange it would be easy to screw it up, but somehow here the author got it right and the result is a fun read.
-The characters are fleshed out, not just one dimensional, and for the most part they are interesting.
-The plot moves along at a brisk pace, although it does get a little murky towards the end, the ending was satisfactory overall.

For this sort of book, read the sample, you will know withing a few pages if the book is for you or not.

When my friend and I asked Lauren Beukes to describe Zoo City, she understandably remarked that the book is rather difficult to explain. Zoo City isn't like a lot of books. On the one hand it is a noir murder mystery with a semi-New Weird slant, but on the other it is a novel about refugees, the music industry, South Africa, guilt, revenge, drugs, prejudice, poverty, and so much more. It is a gloriously complicated novel with equally complicated characters. You might even call it a brilliant example of worldbuilding from outside of the traditional modern fantasy genre.

Zoo City is concerned with Zinzi December, a former convict who, like many others, must bear the
mark of her crime in the form of a semi-intelligent animal -- in her case, it's a sloth. But there's also the Undertow -- a mysterious force that some claim is Hell reaching out for the damned souls of aposymbiots like Zinzi. Aposymbiosis, however, isn't all bad. Every aposymbiot is gifted with an ability. Some can create protective charms while others can dampen magical fields. Zinzi can see the threads that connect people to their lost things. And that's how she survives: finding things for people for a modest fee. But when she takes on a job from a music producer to find a missing girl, things get sticky. Her employer isn't who he seems and the person she's trying to find might be running for a good reason. Toss in her debts to a shady organization of email scammers, her complicated relationship with her refugee lover, a murder, and the seedy underbelly of a Johannesburg trying to deal with its new "problem" and you have a complex story about South Africa, its people, and its culture.

Zoo City is immense in its complexity, despite having the allure of a typical genre romp. Trying to describe the novel will always leave out some salient detail, which will prevent one from conveying a true sense of the novel. It is, in part, a noir crime novel, but it is also a foray into South Africa's present. What is surprising about Zoo City is that it breaks the fantasy tradition of disconnection from reality -- what some might call the escapist nature of the genre. Zoo City roots the reader in the now, altering details as necessary to convey a world that has been changed by its supernatural affliction (aposymbiosis); it is a novel with an intimate relationship to South Africa's present (and, by extension, its past). For that reason, I think Zoo City would benefit from multiple readings. The novel's cultural layers are palimpsest-ial in nature, each element bleeding into another so that almost every detail, allusion, and reference becomes integral to the development of the novel's characters and the narrative itself. I consider this to be a good thing because the novel doesn't suffer from feeling disconnected from the world its characters are supposed to occupy (an alternate-history near-today) -- that is that the characters are so firmly rooted in Beukes' South African milieu that they don't read like characters transplanted from elsewhere.

Being so rooted, Zoo City is as much about its world as it is about its characters. The first-person-present narrative style allows for Zinzi's voice to dominate, but that doesn't prevent Beukes from providing useful insight into the various other characters around her main character. While the focus on Zinzi certainly shows a lopsided view of the world, it doesn't fail to show the wider context in which Zinzi has become a part. Zinzi's detective role, in a way, is a duality: she uses it first as a survival mechanism, but then as a way to dig into her own personal reality, discovering the truth about her friends and even herself. It is through this process that the narrative's cultural strands build on top of one another, providing the reader with a progressively deepening view of the characters and their interaction with the world around them. Zinzi's refugee lover (Benoit), for example, is a man with his own mysteries, and it is inevitably through Zinzi's various other doings, some of which she has hidden even from those that know her, that she not only explains the world from which Benoit has come, but also discovers more about who Benoit is/was and how new events in her life will change the dynamics of their relationship and their relationship to the world around them. Throughout all of this, Zinzi's humor, sarcasm, and cynicism pokes through, coloring her character and her vision of the South Africa of Zoo City (by extension, the reader's view is also colored by these interjections).

It is this attention to detail and character that I loved about Zoo City. Instead of focusing undo attention to its plot, the novel finds a balance between both plot and character. Neither is written at the expense of the other, but the characters also seem to steal the show because they are all incredibly flawed, and deal with those flaws in (sometimes annoyingly) human ways. Perfection is an impossibility in Beukes' narrative. Zinzi has many advantages -- her magical ability and her attitude, which she uses to intimidate her "enemies -- but she is also limited, and knows it. Her actions are appropriately influenced by this knowledge; reading her thoughts as she comes to terms with these flaws, particularly in bad situations, is an amusing, if not voyeuristic, experience.

Neither plot or character are perfectly in-sync, however. The ending, I would argue, felt somewhat rushed and without full resolution (by this I don't mean the last pages, which I think were appropriate based on what occurs in the novel); in a sense, I think the ending shies away from the noir crime narrative Zoo City started with and delves into darker themes that might have been better served by stronger foreshadowing in the novel. Zinzi's voice and her character flaws do, to some extent, overwhelm these minor issues, making the ending suspenseful and (slightly) insane, and I suspect that this line of thought is more a nitpick than a sustainable criticism. What I did enjoy about the ending, though, was that it was not pretty; there are no grand heroes to save the day without a scratch here (and, to be honest, there aren't that many grand heroes that save the day to begin with in the novel) -- Beukes is fairly unrepentant about how she treats her characters. The unresolved ending might also make it possible for a sequel, which I think would be a great addition to Beukes' oeuvre, since it might offer further closure to the narrative strands that, like Zinzi's gift, are still pulling for that distant "end."

Overall, though, I think Zoo City has pretty much secured its place in my top novels of 2011, and of the decade. Zoo City is cultural studies in action, and a brilliant piece of work. I've already found myself leaning ever closer to considering South Africa as the second half of what will form my PhD dissertation. Whether it will be influential on SF/F over the next decade is impossible to predict, but I do know that the novel has already begun influencing me, much as District 9 did when I first saw it last year, and much like future projects by Beukes and Blomkamp undoubtedly will. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go read Moxyland.

Zoo City was awarded the 2011 Arthur C. Clarke Award, the 2010 Kitschies Red Tentacle award (for best novel, as the book that "best elevates the tone of geek culture"???), and nominated for World Fantasy Award, the BSFA Award (actually won for artwork on the cover--go figure), the 2010-2011 University of Johannesburg Creative Writing Prize,the 2011 M-Net Literary Awards and the Nielsen's Booksellers' Choice Award. Helena Spring won the film rights to Zoo City (the only movie she's produced that I have seen is Cry, The Beloved Country, although I think American Kickboxer is something that people have at least heard of. Surprisingly, I seem to have missed that one), but IMDB does not say it's in production. I think this would be hard to film coherently, although it reads like a dream due to Justine Eyre , the "Canadian-born, Philippine-raised, British-educated, Kiwi-fathered, multi-lingual actress and narrator" who sounds the part pretty convincingly for someone who isn't from Johannesburg. She needs all the multi-lingualism she can get as she narrates this tale of <takes deep breath>

Zinzi December is the first-person present narrator of her comings and goings in the course of a missing persons noir thriller with supernatural overtones. Overtones, hell; she has a familiar, as do all people worldwide who commit murder. Her familiar is a sloth, a consequence of an apparent bad drug deal resulting in the death of her brother and loss of her ear. With the familiar comes a magical talent; Zinzi can find lost things. This would be great if this talent didn't lead her into sewers, to live kidnappings and to mine tailing graveyards. It would be nice not to have to use this talent, but she's in debt up to her eyeballs to her drug dealer and earns him money by 419 scams (which she's really good at writing up).

Lauren Beukes' style is delightfully complex, with first-person present narration forming the walls and framework and wikipedia entries, newsreadings, e-mail, SMS chats and newspaper reports making the gingerbread trimmings on this delicious house.

This review is frankly not doing the book justice; it's just terrific. I'm not sure anything can do it justice, but there's a neat review of it at [...], which does a better job than I do. Get the audiobook and be very, very happy you did.

Beukes' work is well constructed, and her prose is great to read. After a bit of a slow start it turns into a real page turner about half way, and I couldn't put it down.

So why the three stars?

Well, when I got to the end, I read the last chapter and said, "C'mon! Really?"

If you're not familiar with Zoo City, the book takes place slightly in the future, in a more dystopian version of South Africa (...or Planet Earth, in general). The challenge I have with Zoo City is that the ending isn't one that's terribly hopeful; actually, it's a bit downright depressing. Call me old fashioned, but I like happy endings. I like there to be heroes and villains (which this book has) and for all the heroes to save the day and all the villains to be put in their box (which this book doesn't have). I felt like I'd spent too much hard time with December for not a good enough payoff.

Lauren Beukes' Zoo City grips readers by the heart and flings them mercilessly into the depths of its magically laced world. A wickedly imaginative novel, Zoo City takes plenty of risks and rides them skillfully through to the reward at the end. Taking place in an alternate world where those guilty of murderous crimes are given an animal familiar by unknown natural forces, the story follows an "animalled" young woman named Zinzi, who lives in the slums of Johannesburg and has a magical talent that helps her find lost things like wedding rings and legal paperwork. Her life seems to finally be looking up when she is hired by one of the biggest names in the music industry to find a missing pop singer. However, she quickly discovers that she's not the only one seeking the singing star as mysterious disappearances and deaths seem to follow the in young girl's footsteps.

The novel begins with some uncertainty - a side effect of being thrust into a different kind of world without much more forewarning than what's found on the novel's jacket. But this uncertainty is quickly dispelled as Beukes wastes no time fleshing out the world by providing interim chapters that consist of various documentary transcripts, interviews, and scientific analyses of the "zoo phenomenon." These interim chapters give readers a glimpse into the state of the world at large, while not derailing Zinzi's story - an effective expositional strategy when dealing with subject material that affects the globe while at the same time focusing on a story that is largely localized to a certain individual. It also helps that the interim chapters are incredibly fascinating; one chapter in particular focuses on an interview with several inmates who have animals and how their lives have changed with the acquisition of their familiars. This chapter, along with others like it, provide a different kind of emotional depth that sets Zoo City apart from other urban fantasy novels like it.

Beukes also strikes an excellent balance with the female protagonist - incredibly strong, yet equally vulnerable: a very human characterization. This brilliant balance is realized to such a degree that I quickly found myself cheering for "Zinzi the multi-layered person," rather than for "Zinzi the over-sexualized, confused maiden in distress" or "Zinzi the over-compensating, testosterone laden, questionably female" protagonist that many books tend to fill their pages with. I must say, it was refreshing to experience a story in which the themes of internal feminist strength are not presented in an over the top fashion.

With a well-rounded story and a plethora of engaging characters, Zoo City easily makes its mark in the world of urban fantasy. The setting is lush (in a concrete jungle kind of way) and the messages held within the story's narrative strike home, bringing an acute awareness to the type of life led by those in South Africa's war torn landscape.

Readers may be offended by the violence depicted in this book.
I am disappointed that this book includes a graphic stomach-turning description of two drug-induced children being encouraged to hack each other to death by teling them it is only a game.

(Cross-posted from the Adarna SF book blog)

Zoo City is an urban fantasy set in South Africa. Just when you thought that everything's been done with animal familiars, Beukes adds an interesting social dimension to it. After a rapture-like event, people who have committed major crimes (dubbed as zoos) began to appear with animal familiars.

[The truth is we're all criminals. Murderers, rapists, junkies. Scum of the earth. In China they execute zoos on principle. Because nothing says guilty like a spirit critter at your side.]

Zinzi is a former journalist turned 419 scammer and lost-stuff-finder to pay off her old drug debts. Her magical ability is finding lost things, but after the death of her client, she ends up uncovering the dark histories of characters in the music biz, while trying to figure out a pattern to the unexplainable zoo serial murders.

Urban fantasy and crime noir often bond over the same whisky bottle, drinking it out of a paper bag while hanging out at an abandoned train station, and you can't get grittier than Zinzi in the zoo slums. The world-building is creative and the setting feels authentic. Beukes throws in details like how a traditional psychic in the healer market sports a top with a D&G logo (so subtle that it could be the real thing) and waggles a brand new iPhone. And the prose is as hardboiled as it can get: "The tea tasted like stale horse piss drained through a homeless guy's sock, but I drank it anyway." I'm a sucker for both noir and original fantasy settings, and Zoo City excels on both fronts. This book is worth reading for the world-building alone.

The magic system is unique with enough context to make it believable, but also enough mystery to give it that chilling edge of the supernatural: "All it takes is one Afghan warlord to show up with a Penguin in a bulletproof vest, and everything science and religion thought they knew goes right out the window." And zoos are pretty creepy to other people, because they are former (or current) criminals and there is no rigorous way of documenting their magical abilities. In fact, many zoos hide their real abilities from the government if it could get them into trouble.

While this book has a lot of strengths, its weakness lies in the plot and pacing. The plot is interesting, but it's not a page-turner and the pace is actually quite slow. There's a lot of funny moments and slices-of-life sections that flesh out the very intriguing protagonist, but there isn't much progress on the main investigation until the last 20% of the book. I loved the plot twists and the surprises, but it all happens suddenly towards the end.

Zoo City isn't the most riveting crime thriller, but its highly recommended for the innovative world-building.

This book didn't satisfy me, The main character is unsympathetic, though maybe I just don't like anti-heroes. I cheated part way through and peaked ahead at the ending, only to find it going to a place I didn't want to go, so I stopped reading there.

Over spring break, my third world literature teacher told us that we could pick any book from a list or pick our own. While some of my class mates went for the more realistic sounding choices, I chose this book since I had heard it was a creative fiction novel with a little bit of fantasy and mystery. Now after reading this, "a little bit" is clearly not what this book contains.
The book follows a character, similar to L.A Noire type detective and journalist, named Zinzi December. Zinzi comes of at first as an irresponsible rich brat, but slowly transitions in a strong main character as she proves to be assertive, brave, independent and most importantly reflective. She's not the most reliable narrator, sometimes not even revealing important information to the reader, but in terms of the possible narrators within this story, her point of view tells the most. The plot of this story is pretty standard stuff when it comes to mystery fiction novels, but it's handled nicely as the story progresses. Someone goes missing, it turns out the case is more complicated, and then everything goes wrong.
What makes the story interesting though is what it unique and classifies it as a fiction novel beyond its interesting characters. In the story, anyone who has commits a crime is punished by being "animalled". This means that the character is given an animal and a special power that comes with it. The animal is also treated like a piece of the characters soul in that they suffer serious side effects when not near it. Also, if the animal dies, the character also dies, but instead of the simple heart stopping to beat, they are consumed by a mysterious black cloud. The "animalling" is a major part of the story is really amazing when it's explained, described, or used. Each animal seems to be a character in itself and explained well enough that new readers won't be confused during their first read through.
The "animalling" is also a big part of what makes this a third world novel beyond the obvious black characters and setting in this alternate version of Johannesburg in South Africa. In many African cultures, animals played a huge role as both spirits and gods. Each animal represented a different aspect of life and was associated to different emotions or actions. For example, lions were worshipped as beasts of power and might, whereas animals such as the crocodile represented patience, assertiveness, and death.
As for my opinion on the book, I found it to be a real hit or miss in some places. The beginning was incredibly interesting and detailed, but as it progressed it felt like the writer was getting sick of the writing of the story. This can be seen as the book transitions from interesting and mysterious to dreary and almost morbid. The book is already dark from the get go, but what was once hope that she might solve this mystery, turns into one of the most disappoint endings I've even read. Without spoiling anything, it felt like I wasting my time trying to expect a good ending. I like books that reward the reader and it doesn't have to end with "they lived happily ever after" for it to be good. I've read some really dark books with dark endings and this book did not accomplish that.
Overall, I liked the detail and would suggest it to friends or people interested in it. Is it worth all its honors and praise? Yes. It is worth making a movie about it? Only if they change the ending similar to what they did with Watchmen and its silly dimension squid ending.

Enjoyed the book immensely. The author creates a clear and consistent world where individuals who commit guilt-ridden crimes are burdened with a Familiar . From then on they are living on borrowed time, either trying to redeem themselves, lead a normal life, or really go over to the dark side of their nature. Until the end comes for them, whatever exactly that is.

And that's where i have a problem with the book. We learn that magic exists in this world but we don't get the specifics of how things work. The author hints on many of the topics, magic in the modern world, but fails to flesh them out beyond their use for the story. Could it be laziness? I doubt it. She did an incredible job at world building. My assumption is that the lack of explanation is a reflection of Zee's limited world view/experience.

Another gripe is the ending...spoilers......it didn't feel organic. We get hints of the brutality of the world but DAMN it felt like overkill (no pun intended). Part of me wishes I was there during the creative process, telling the author "Slow your roll girl! One at a time!"

I'm new to the mystery genre so perhaps this new material to me is cheap rehash for other mystery buffs. Either way, I would buy this book again if I lost my current copy.

In present-day Johannesburg, a new kind of segregation is taking place: regular, law-abiding citizens are kept safe from the criminals, who have all been animalled.

That's the premise of Lauren Beukes' brilliantly conceived Zoo City. When someone commits a heinous crime their guilt manifests in the appearance of an animal companion. The human and animal share a link, and the human also derives a special power, or shavi, from this connection. Ex-journalist, ex-drug addict Zinzi December has had her Sloth for a few years now because of her role in the death of her beloved brother. Zinzi is out of prison now and trying to pay off her substantial debts by writing scripts for e-mail 419 scams, and occasionally acting the part of the rescued Nigerian princess or savvy South African business partner when the poor suckers being scammed out of their life savings show up in Johannesburg. Then Zinzi is hired by a reclusive music mogul to find the missing twin sister in his youthful pop group sensation iJusi, and she finds herself thrust back into her shiny, celebrity- and drug-centred old life while she also explores the criminal underbelly of her new world. It isn't entirely clear which part is worse, or more dangerous.

Beukes does a good job of presenting us with a world just a little bit different from our own, with vastly different consequences. No one knows for sure why, in the 1990s, animal familiars started seeking out dangerous criminals, who become known as aposymbiots, or "zoos." No one knows why these people experience intense pain if physically separated from their animal, or why, if the animal dies before the human, the very shadows come to life and swallow the hapless individual whole: the so-called Undertow. The writing is sharp, witty and evocative. Descriptions, such as the reclusive record producer's house smelling like old vase water, Zinzi experiencing a headache "that could rip off the worst hangover's head and piss down its neck," or a particularly irritating problem as being akin to a public hair stuck between your teeth, each scene and each bit of dialogue is bang on, and the writing is a joy throughout.

The use of traditional African religious motifs and medicine markets, along with religious and psychological frameworks that are thrust upon zoos, show what a mess the world is. It would have been interesting if Beukes had also explored questions of Apartheid or AIDS through the allegory of the animalled in a more overt way. Too, it isn't clear if the ghettos into which the zoos are ostracized occur all over the world, or if this is unique to the South African experience. Perhaps Beukes wanted to be oblique about these obvious issues or didn't want to focus her urban fantasy on these problems--not every book set in Africa needs to be Cry, the Beloved Country. Part of the book's strength is that it doesn't offer too many details about the zoo phenomenon, but it is also a weakness, because there is so much more that I'd like to see and know about. It leaves the reader feeling a bit frustrated and wanting.

The ending, too, is rushed a bit and the pacing could be a bit more even. The setting, the ontological "shift," and the first half the world-building story are more interesting than the ultimate finale and the resolution to the mystery Zinzi is trying to solve.

Overall, Zoo City is a fun, enthralling, dangerous read. A work of immense scope, well-crafted characters, and great intrigue, I can only hope that Lauren Beukes is planning a second installment in this world. It's too good a sandbox not to want to play in again.

Zoo City is a superbly written and deeply conceived book that needs words like "gritty," "dark," and so on to round out a proper review. There's plenty to say about Zinzi December, the hard-nosed down-on-her-luck "animalled" who narrates with a quick wit and a well-earned cynicism. The concepts Lauren Beukes presents are innovative and well-rounded, and the rich narrative drew me in and kept me turning digital pages. A fascinating, highly textured read, to be sure.

That's not what I'm here to write about. Earlier reviewers have hit the high points and you should believe what they say.

It's the ending of the book where things fall down for me. The book makes a sudden turn from noir fantasy to slasher horror, which admittedly is not to my taste. The last several chapters present many trials for our beleaguered hero, and any one of them would have made a fine climax for the novel. It's the combination, strung together with a shuddering pacing that fails to really complete the emotional journey, that ultimately left me feeling unfulfilled. Zinzi had such a strength to her but, in the end, finds herself a spectator to events beyond her control. Ultimately that's where I feel the book failed to live up to what, at the midpoint, was a huge potential for an amazing story.

In sum, a great read that fizzles just that little bit at the end. Still recommended.

I liked this book enormously. It was great urban fantasy, which may have been about politics, may have been about psychology, may have been about magic...all of these make an appearance. The only reason I am not bestowing five stars is because I reserve that for world-changing, once-a-decade sort of reads. I recommend Zoo City wholeheartedly.

Just okay. Good read with flashes of great world-building. Ultimately felt something missing. Noir elements were a bit hackneyed. It's not quite Perdido Street Station in Johannesburg, though to be fair, it wasn't trying to be. Is there a sequel to this? If it's an episodic-fiction-style sharp ending with an interesting follow-up, that might be good.

This was a fascinating, unique story, from the setting to the magic animals. I loved the setting in the slums of Johannesburg with a refugee problem that mimics reality in many ways. The Zoos were also an unexpected addition to the story since they gave the person a random new magical ability, but where a constant reminder that they had done something evil and so anyone who had an animal was looked down upon by those who didn't have one. There were interstitial chapters that gave hints as to how the process works and got started. The music exec was particularly heinous and did a nasty bit of magic to transfer his animal away. I'm glad he got his comeuppance. Overall, I highly enjoyed the story.

The writing throughout is incredibly beautiful, detailed, & her characterization is out of this World good. But while I loved those things about the book, there was a little too much going on, some of which seemed to go nowhere until a very abrupt "part 2" of the book was introduced a hundred pages from the end. Yet another mysterious thread was introduced - and believe me, there was already plenty happening that had left me wondering where Beukes was going with the story - but, masterfully, she pulled it all together and re-captured my attention for the duration ... although - really, that ending came out of nowhere!

So overall, Zoo City had a strong beginning, a slightly meandering middle, and a strong ending - all tied together with stunning writing that leaves me anxious to read more from Beukes.

The worldbuilding & characterization are amazing. Zinzi is a flawed but likeable protagonist with a strong & sometimes beautiful voice. The only thing keeping me from giving this book five stars is the ending. When the ending arrived, I realized the story being told was not quite the story I'd thought I was reading. It's a good and valid story, beautifully told. The setup just led me to expect something else.

I'm still glad I read the book. I enjoyed the heck out of it & I'll be watching for more books by this author.

I had never heard of Lauren Beukes before attending a recent retrospective SF exhibit at the British Library in London. While browsing amongst the old first editions, interacive displays etc., I came upon a video presentation, in which various authors gave their views about Science Fiction, past, present, and future. Upon hearing, Ms. Beukes, I was intrigued by her vision, and later sought her book, Zoo City in the bookshop. I saw that it was recommended by William Gibson, one of my favorite authors, who called it VERY VERY VERY GOOD. As I savor Zoo City, I think that Lauren Beukes work has the same innovative potential for the genre as Gibson's, begun many years ago in his debut ouvre, Neuromancer.

Interesting detective story, lots of action and twists. Really liked the narrator protagonist. Could be a good movie. It took too long to explain the animal thing and there were a couple of characters who just weren't differentiated well but I got past it.

I discovered Lauren Beukes very recently and have now read all her books. This one was strange and I got slightly confused with all the characters. She writes exceptionally well which in itself is a pleasure. However, I would not say this was her best book.

My comments on LibraryThing were pretty vague but my (not always reliable) memory says this book...

* moved along pretty quickly
* had an unusual protagonist
* had an unusual twist on the normal urban fantasy
* had neither vampires nor werewolves (Thank Deity-of-your-choice!)
* was entertaining
* was a bit gory

I'm probably not qualified to really review this because I couldn't get past the first 10 pages. It should have been called adjective alley rather than zoo city. I loathed every minute of it but that's just me.

Without giving away any spoilers, the first 2/3 of the book are good - novel ideas, reasonable plot line, interesting characters. But the last 1/3 becomes frankly unpleasant to read, with an unsatisfying ending as well.

Can't say that I would recommend this book to anyone I know.

Unfortunately the unspeakably bad South African accent from Justine Eyre ruined the book for me. Did not get past the first couple of chapters. The idea of the book is good and I will try and read the book so I don't get distracted by the terrible production