Not-a-review: Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

One of the things I’ve been doing for the past year or so is reading every book that the podcast The Writer and the Critic talk about.  Kirstyn and Mondy are amazing people and the discussions they have about books are always worth reading to.

I’ve read some amazing books via the podcast – many of which I wouldn’t have picked up or come across afterwards (and I am dead excited that they’re going to be doing House of Leaves this year!).

One of the upcoming books for the podcast happened to be one that’s been sitting on my to-be-read shelf for way too long – Zoo City, by Lauren Beukes.

I think I grabbed this first because of word of mouth about it’s awesomeness.  And knowing that it involved spirit animals of a kind always had me intrigued.  I snapped up a copy and then, as too many books tend to do, it languished gathering dust on my shelf for far too long.

I’m really regretting that time now, because the book is damn awesome.  I love that it features many POC characters, and I love even more that they don’t all get “cool” spirit animals.  The way this world works is just unique, and while I want to know about the mechanics of how people get Animalled (and why), the writer in me loves that Beukes never really explains about it, just giving just enough information to make the whole thing fascinating.

I’ve now picked up Moxyland , Beukes’ debut (which has also been languishing unread for far too long) and am already sucked into it after only a few pages.  I have no idea if Beukes is going to revisit the world of Zoo City at any time, but I really, really hope she does.

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.