This is the first fiction I've read that is firmly set in 2020 an the onset of the COVID pandemic. Geth and her friends are high school seniors, awaiting college acceptance. There's a lot going on here and it was fascinating to get to relive that period of time through this book. Geth is Black, her life has been impacted by gun violence, she's dealing with OCD. Her mom is a nurse and their town in NY is on the front edge of impact of the pandemic. Rumors abound. There are COVID deniers.
Geth tries to navigate this difficult period while finding her voice and willingness to take a stand. ( )

I have received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

As someone who started my own journal at the beginning of the pandemic to document history as it was happening, I was really excited to read Zero O'Clock to get a perspective of a teen living in New York City. Especially a senior who was dealing with schools being closed, graduation and prom being cancelled, and the uncertainty of college.

I had mixed feelings about the characters who felt real but also a bit absurd at times. What felt really weird, though, was the bit of unrealistic sci-fi that was thrown into the middle of the story. While Geth (the main character) is working through the challenges of friendships and being stuck in lockdown with her family, her mom's boyfriend's stepson suddenly has trope-level hacking skills and there is mysterious brain scanning technology. It felt really out of place since it didn't come up until the middle of the book and just seemed to be thrown in, while the rest dealt with real problems. Don't get me wrong, I love sci-fi, but in a book based on a real moment in history that already had feels like living through a Stephen King novel, made up tech was not necessary.

Otherwise the book had its ups and downs. Sometimes Geth felt overexplanatory of certain things and some of the moments were a bit extreme, but other parts were honest and moving.

Overall, it wasn't bad and I was left wondering how Geth managed the following fall with college. ( )

Zero O’Clock is the story of Geth, a Black high school senior in New Rochelle, and her friends and family all navigating the COVID crisis, the alienation, and fear, and the summer’s uprising after the murder of George Floyd. Get is smart, though not as smart as her best friend Tovah, who has been preparing her valedictory speech for years. They are also good friends with Diego, the star quarterback who recently started going to their school and became friends with them after seeking out tutoring in Mandarin class from Geth.

Geth’s mother is a nurse. Keith is her mom’s live-in boyfriend, a freelance journalist whose career has stalled. Geth is unhappy with the relationship. She’s a levelheaded teen who struggles with OCD compulsions that make her take longer to do things, but she still gets them done. She’s a fan of BTS and the way she talks about them makes me want to tune in.

Navigating Zoom classes, protest marches, and COVID, Deth remains a force and in the end a force who found her voice.

I loved Zero O’Clock. I really fell in love with the characters. There were some “learning moments” for white characters who suddenly recognized their privilege, for example, fighting with a cop when Geth, a Black teen, was present and likely to bear the brunt of police reaction. But Geth is learning, too. I liked how the story of her father unrolls in small increments over the course of the book because, for Geth, it’s too much to talk about. There is just so much that feels authentic and immediate. I also love how current it feels, some of these conversations are happening right now on Twitter. It is a Young Adult book, so it is very easy reading. I am definitely not its target audience, but I loved it anyway.

I received an ARC of Zero O’Clock from the publisher through LibraryThing.

Zero O’Clock at Akashic Books

C. J. Farley author site

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2021/12/08/9781617759758/ ( )

Review: Zero O: Clock by C.J. Farley.

This is an Early Reviewer’s book. I tried to get interested in this book with the character Geth ( who I had a hard time liking) narrating her day to day events made it hard for me to stay interested and my imagination wasn’t clear to vision some of what she was talking about. I think she should have been more organized about her life, the pandemic, OCD, and using the dialogue with other characters more interesting.

Throughout the book Geth speaks about that there are more definitions of loneliness and grief. Geth didn’t have much communication with her friends besides when it comes to Columbia University and some thoughts about the pandemic and how she was dealing with it and how it was affecting people her age. Geth does seem to change her altitude near the end of the book. She seemed to curve her anger when it came to the police bothering the younger groups especially when it came to racial injustices. Geth actually brought down her anxiety, overcame, grief and felt a new change in herself and the ability of making changes in her thinking. ( )

Zero O'Clock by C.J. Farley is set in New Rochelle in March 2020, at the beginning of the lockdown.Written as the journal entries of Geth Montego, it follows her struggles with family, OCD, and the Covid-19 pandemic.

I didn't think I was ready to read about the events of that March, but Farley's approach was engaging, well written, and funny enough to offer a break from the difficult, day to day events. This is such a small slice of everything that happened, only covering March to June 2020, so I wouldn't be surprised if we got at least a second book. I liked seeing the world through Geth's eyes, and I found it easy to care about the other characters as well. So much is covered, the exponential rise of cases, 45's response, students trying to remote in to classes, job and business loss, health care worker stress, lgbtq+ issues and racism. So, so much that happened.

There were parts that were harder to believe. I think there were points when problems resolved a little too easily, especially with regard to Karhakonha and his computer skills and Geth's mother's health. Not that I'm complaining. After the past year, I could use some positive, simple solutions. Over all, it is well worth the read, good for teens and up. It will offer a glimpse into our shared experience of the pandemic. ( )