For sixteen-year-old Geth Montego, zero o'clock begins on March 12, 2020. By June, she wonders if it will ever end.An insightful, eye-opening, and inventive story. C.J. Farley has penned a novel that sheds an important light on real issues facing young people today.--Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U GiveZero O'Clock is a beautiful and timely YA novel that is both heartbreaking and whip smart, a glimpse into the world of virtual friendship, classrooms, and pop stardom.--Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg, author of The NineThoughtful, provocative, and pounding with the fast-paced beat of a sharp-witted adolescent mind, Zero O'Clock is the story of a Jamaican-American teen girl at the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Rochelle, New York. C.J. Farley has created an irresistible heroine in Geth Montego. Simmering with justifiable anger at everything from the cancellation of her senior prom to racial injustices and police brutality, Geth manages to overcome grief, anxiety, and confusion to discover a new sense of herself and her ability to create change.--Karen Dukess, author of The Last Book PartyZero O'Clock seems to have a direct line into the mindset of a modern teenager. I enjoyed it immensely --Alex Wheatle, author of Cane WarriorsIn early March 2020 in New Rochelle, New York, teen Geth Montego is fumbling with the present and uncertain about her future. She only has three friends: her best friend Tovah, who's been acting weird ever since they started applying to the same colleges; Diego, who she wants to ask to prom, but if she does it could ruin everything; and then there's the K-pop band BTS. She's never actually met any of them, but she's pretty sure each member of the group would step up to be her BFF if she ever really needed them.Then, she really needs them. Geth's small city becomes ground zero of the COVID-19 pandemic as one of the first US containment zones. In the span of three chaotic and relentless months--as her community is upended by the virus and the onset of Black Lives Matter protests--Geth faces a choice and a question: Is she willing to risk everything to fight for her beliefs? And if so, what exactly does she believe in?With microscopic detail, bountiful empathy, and--somehow--laugh-out-loud humor, C.J. Farley breathlessly captures a moment in time no teenagers who experienced it will soon forget: Every day felt like a fight for our humanity, and some new truths were impossible to believe.
