About the Book
Book Title: Minimum Wage Magic
Author: Rachel Aaron
Series: DFZ
Genre: Urban Fantasy and Science Fiction
Published: November 9th, 2018 by Aaron/Bach
Pages: 293
Format: Kindle Ebook
Source: Kindle Unlimited
My Rating: ★★★★☆
Disclaimer: This is an unsponsored review. I read this book through my Kindle Unlimited subscription, which I paid for with my own money. All opinions expressed are my own. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Summary
Life has been hard lately for Opal Yong-ae, living in the Detroit Free Zone. She’s taken up residence here to taste some freedom and get away from her father. Unfortunately, she owes him a massive debt for that freedom, and is trying to make ends meet as a Cleaner. This job has her bidding on abandoned properties to prepare them for the next tenant. The job has its perks, mainly a free license to keep whatever magic or otherwise valuable items she finds inside, but Opal has found herself in the midst of a streak of bad luck.
One fateful day, Opal (accompanied by her AI companion Sybil) finds something inside her latest job site that might just turn things around. If it pays off, she might just be able to pay off her father completely and be free from his grasp forever. That is, if she can survive long enough to find where the trail of clues brings her.
My Review
This book was really good. It was the type of book that I didn’t believe the little page counter at the bottom of my Kindle screen. It felt like I hadn’t been reading as long as I had.
If I had to pick a favorite aspect of this book, it would have to be the world building. In the world of the DFZ (Detroit Free Zone), magic is real, and it’s back with a vengeance. Basically, every legend, folklore, mythology, etc. to involve magic in any way used to be real, but it went dormant for a few thousand years. Several decades before this book takes place (and a decade or two in the future from when I’m writing this), all that magic came back.
In the book, we learn that when this happened, a Native American goddess of the Great Lakes was PISSED with the cities in her region. Y’know, for polluting her lakes and all. Anyway, she used her power to level Detroit to the ground. Where Detroit once was, she rebuilt the city how she wanted and separated it from the rest of the United States. Well, years passed, and eventually the city itself grew a consciousness and became its own god. Now, the city is a freestanding city-state that updates itself. Also, since the city is literally a deity, it governs itself, and practically anything goes.
There’s also a lot of speculative technology in the world of the DFZ. AI companions are commonplace, body modification means much more than piercings and tattoos, and most cars on the road are self-driving electric cars. It’s kind of fun to watch how the author weaves the magic elements with the advanced technologies. It’s done extremely well, and overall the world is super immersive.
Now on to the characters. Opal was a great protagonist. She was kind of mysterious at the start, but had a great personality that drew me in immediately. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Opal’s AI companion Sybil though. Even before the plot really kicked off, Sybil was a bit of a buzzkill at times. There is another main character that you meet later in the book, but I don’t want to spoil him, so let me just say he was a pleasure to read about as well.
Overall, this book was a great ride from start to finish. I can’t wait to pick up the sequel. I gave it 4/5 stars, only because it got a little slow towards the middle.
Pin me!
