Rachel Aaron

Making a living is hard. Especially in a lawless city where gods are real, dragons are traffic hazards, and buildings move around on their own. Opal Yong-ae has never let little things like impossibility stop her. She's a Cleaner: someone who buys abandoned apartments and sells off their contents. No matter how dangerous they may be...

DFZ Book 1

Minimum Wage Magic

Sade A

1.5 Stars rounded to 2 cos of goodreads shit star rating system.

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If ever there was a book that needed to be plastered with a big disappointment sign in front, this book would be on the list. No questions.

As much as i sometimes crap on books and read books I know I won't enjoy just for the hell of it, this book was actually one I'd put in my TBR and actively planned to read if it went on sale. Hello, Kindle Unlimited and I could finally read it. Yay! Not😒.

 

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I've read one Rachel Aaron book, Nice Dragons Finish Last and while I did not particularly love the story on account of it having quite bland main characters, the writing & story were actually quite decent. Meh but decent.

Minimum Wage Magic on the other hand, was terrible. I kept asking myself if this was the same author that wrote that book. The plot was long drawn out and quite frankly when you get to the whole crux of the matter, extremely ludicrous. You mean I slugged through 200+ pages because someone (view spoiler)[wanted mythical birds or whatever those things were for basically animal fighting entertainment?? (hide spoiler)] Really?? Like this book, dead ass had Opal and Nic decrypting a cyborg arm, entering some weird ass place in the DFZ, getting shot at, this book had Nic doing all those crazy fight moves, had Opal and Nic getting a bounty on their heads because (view spoiler)[someone wanted those animals to get into an arena and fight??? (hide spoiler)]

You sef check it now. If I say I was gob smacked when I finally reached what should have been the payload in this book would be an understatement. 

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"My father's hand clenched, his pale elegant, claw-like nails shredding the money I'd handed him into confetti"

Like, what???
Look. I'm the first to admit that a story might not work out, but the writing can still be really good. Story aside, this book was painful to read.
I don't even want to go into the obvious love story brewing with Nic and Opal because in what world does it make sense for that dude to just show up like that?

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Anyways, peak disappointment but on the bright side, i didn't spend money on this, so  
ALSOOOOO: Does this character on the book cover actually look Korean???? Or am I tripping? Compare with the book cover image for the rest of the books in the series and I feel like I'm being validated.

Jessica Smith

What a quick, fun read this was. Minimum Wage Magic (awesome title, incidentally) is a futuristic fantasy book set in the Detroit Free Zone, which I gather is the setting of a number of the author's other books. As a setting, it's nothing short of brilliant: a lawless high-tech urban society with interventionist gods, a city whose geography is constantly being shuffled about, and an extreme level of density that would've put the Kowloon Walled City to shame. It's a setting that screams to have TV series set there – a show with the vibe of Joss Whedon's Angel would work very nicely.

The story itself was a bit weaker, but still highly enjoyable. It follows Opal Yong-ae, a graduate of a prestigious university who instead works as a Cleaner – that is, she buys the rights to clean out the apartments of people who've been evicted for non-payment of rent, in return for being able to resell their belongings at a profit. It's not exactly a common career path for someone with her levels of education, but Opal has her reasons: a massive debt to pay, and a strong inclination to live in hiding from the one she's repaying it to.

At the outset of the book, Opal has been suffering through a five-month dry spell of not being able to make enough money back from the apartments she Cleans to cover her costs. So, when she gets one containing a dead man and a lot of interesting, mysterious magic, she senses profit to be made. She bids hard on a related apartment, and in so doing attracts a lot of attention: firstly from the bad guys, who are interested in the product of the magical ritual she's trying to piece together, and then from Nik, a fellow Cleaner who also likes profit and can sense that Opal is in over her head.

And it is Nik, if anything, who makes up the one thing I didn't find satisfying about this book. From the moment he offers to help Opal, he's really the one who does everything. He knows where to go, who to see, and what needs to be done, while she just kind of tags along. (view spoiler)[At the end of the book, he's even the one who has to cover Opal's loan repayment, because she hasn't actually figured out a way of doing that despite it being her overriding goal throughout the whole book. (hide spoiler)] The good news is that this is the first instalment of a series, and it is possible (though we shall see) that Opal's character development – becoming a capable person who can largely manage her own affairs – will be a major theme of it.

Overall, this is probably a three-star book that gets kicked up a star due to its ridiculously awesome setting. I guess it's worth noting that while this is the first book of this series, there is another set in the same place, namely the Heartstrikers series that starts with Nice Dragons Finish Last. I don't know that dragons were really the most gripping part of this setting for me, but for more time in the DFZ it might be worth a try.

Minimum Wage Magic DFZ Book 1

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