Emily B. (LibraryEm42) reviewed on 7/31/2010 + 26 more book reviews

This was a really fun book. Post-apocalyptic (well, kinda - it was a slow, economic apocalypse) Toronto is a vivid and interesting setting, from the drug-dealing gangs to the nice old couple selling squirrel meat in the park to get by. The protagonist, Ti-Jeanne, is a young woman tough enough to survive here, but still overwhelmed and uncertain about things as a lot of young people are. She keeps forgiving her drug-dealing ex-boyfriend when she probably shouldn't, is stressed about the new baby, and her relationship with her grandmother Gros-Jeanne is complicated by Ti-Jeanne's wanting nothing to do with her grandmother's Caribbean religious practices. (Her mother Mi-Jeanne has been missing for years.)

Then a politician living outside the Burn, in a nicer area of Toronto, decides she needs a transplant with a human rather than a porcine heart and tasks a local gang leader with fetching her one. Unfortunately, he turns the job over to one of his dealers, Toby, who happens to be Ti-Jeanne's ex-boyfriend. To shake things up even more, Ti-Jeanne starts realizing that the loa are real, and they want something from her...

Another reviewer mentioned that all the men in the book are awful people. Leaving aside minor characters like the old man in the park, that's generally true - because they all belong to the antagonist's gang. Gangsters who deal in black magic don't generally hire nice people! And to help balance that out, the female politician is just as villainous in her way, since she knows she's asking the gang to murder an innocent person to get her a heart, as well as being complicit in the kinds of policies that created the Burn and keep it the way it is. That leaves - well, just Ti-Jeanne and Gros Jeanne, plus the crazy homeless woman who keeps turning up, and she certainly isn't managing well. (I'm not sure how you would classify the loa, but the one Ti-Jeanne deals with most seems male, whatever that means for a loa, and he's scary and powerful and not someone I'd want over for dinner, but not evil.)

Overall, a fun adventure that combines science fiction and fantasy elements.

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