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Reviews

“Zero O’Clock is going to go down as one of the texts we will use in the future to make sense of this moment we’re in.”
—Tonya Mosley, host, WBUR Here & Now

“Being back in the classroom may come with mixed feelings for young people as they navigate the post-pandemic life. One writer, C.J. Farley, captured those feelings in his new book Zero O’Clock which looks at the anxiety and challenges that the youth have endured due to COVID.”
—Pix11 Morning News

“For fiction with a sense of realism, this is a coming-of-age young adult book whose title is the same as that of a 2020 song by superstar boy band BTS, 00:00 (Zero O’Clock), with vocals by Jungkook, Jimin, Jin and V. Author C.J. Farley’s novel grapples with the stresses and trauma of 2020.”
—South China Morning Post

“Remember when New Rochelle was frantically sanitizing office buildings and rapidly shutting things down in the beginning of 2020? Well, Geth remembers, as her character dealt with being a senior in high school in the first New York town COVID raged through in Zero O’Clock by Christopher John Farley.”
—The Root

“The book focuses on a high school senior in New Rochelle, New York, whose preoccupation with college admissions, her father’s death and the K-pop group BTS becomes overshadowed by the COVID-19 outbreak.”
—Here & Now

“Geth is a likable, smart Gen Z protagonist in this modern epistolary work that combines diary entries, text messages, news reports, emails, and English lit essays to immersive effect . . . Farley offers readers undeniable value in this retelling of recent, unforgettable history.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“[Farley’s] brilliance is in getting into the mind of a 16-year-old Black girl and giving her a vivid voice.”
—Booklist

“Geth’s voice carries the novel through our unprecedented recent history as she navigates grief, anger, and her own mental illnesses of anxiety, depression, and OCD during the stay-at-home orders and rising pandemic death toll.”
—School Library Journal

Author Biography

C.J. FARLEY was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and lives in New Rochelle, NY. A graduate of Harvard University, Farley is the author of the acclaimed fantasy adventure novel Game World and the best-selling biography Aaliyah: More Than a Woman, which was adapted into a hit Lifetime movie. Farley’s young adult novel Around Harvard Square won an NAACP Image Award and was named a 2020 Honor Book by the Paterson Prize for Books for Young People. His latest novel is Zero O’Clock.