What do you think?
Rate this book
Generation 0
What happens when every adult on Earth drops dead? Now, a misfit, a brawler, and a tomboy must band together to fight the rise of a new adolescent Hitler.
On Friday, June 10 at exactly 9:27 a.m. EST, every adult on earth dies.
The children have inherited the earth. And their nightmare is just beginning.
Facing starvation and persued by a relentless sniper bent on killing her, Josie Revelle—an undersized misfit with nowhere to run—embarks on a mad 48-hour journey that takes her places darker than she ever imagined. She finds friendship with Shawnika Williams, a street-smart, hard-punching girl on desperate quest to find her missing brother, and Grace Cavanaugh, a naïve West Virginia farm girl looking for redemption . . . and Josie's about to become an unwilling messiah.
At the end of their path awaits charismatic, megalomaniacal teenage psychopath Zane Barzán, who commands an army of adolescent killers and has been busy building his own blood-soaked empire modeled after Hitler's Third Reich.
Misfit. Brawler. Tomboy. Psychopath. Are they the end of humanity—or a new beginning?
On Friday, June 10 at exactly 9:27 a.m. EST, every adult on earth dies.
The children have inherited the earth. And their nightmare is just beginning.
Facing starvation and persued by a relentless sniper bent on killing her, Josie Revelle—an undersized misfit with nowhere to run—embarks on a mad 48-hour journey that takes her places darker than she ever imagined. She finds friendship with Shawnika Williams, a street-smart, hard-punching girl on desperate quest to find her missing brother, and Grace Cavanaugh, a naïve West Virginia farm girl looking for redemption . . . and Josie's about to become an unwilling messiah.
At the end of their path awaits charismatic, megalomaniacal teenage psychopath Zane Barzán, who commands an army of adolescent killers and has been busy building his own blood-soaked empire modeled after Hitler's Third Reich.
Misfit. Brawler. Tomboy. Psychopath. Are they the end of humanity—or a new beginning?
336 pages, Paperback
Published November 7, 2017
1 person is currently reading
11 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 3, 2017
I don't usually read books that are so darkly dystopian, however, I am internet friends with the writer and was keen to check out his work. Generation 0 follows the lives of four pre-teens following the sudden death of all the adults in the United States, if not the entire world. Three of these characters - Josie, Shawnika, and Grace – struggle to endure violence and adversity and to survive and rescue loved ones in a world seemingly gone mad. Meanwhile, the fourth character, Zane, is a megalomaniacal tyrant with a cult of child soldiers whom the three girls must prevent from taking over the newly formed world and making it worse.
This book, although featuring young characters, isn't your typical YA novel, assuming it's even really YA at all. In many YAs, the representations of violence and hardship are rather sanitized - just terrible enough to give a hint of suffering, but not so much that the characters’ hair and clothing get filthy and foul smelling. In this book, the author really goes the full distance in representing the horror of the situation: main characters forced to prevent starvation by eating rats; gun-toting gangs of kids staking out their territory in the absence of adults to stop them; sadistic casual violence; rape; murder. In addition, the death of all the adults is portrayed in lurid detail, including the millions of rotting corpses left behind in first the sweltering heat and then the freezing cold and snow.
I enjoyed this veracity even as I cringed at it. I also liked the toughness and resourcefulness of the female characters. Even Grace, who was more gentle and peaceful than Josie and Shawnika, demonstrated a quiet strength through her faith in the face of unimaginable adversity. I don't usually like stories with multiple points of view, usually finding some characters significantly more interesting than others. But in this case, I enjoyed following them all - even Zane, who was very much a character one can love to hate.
That being said, Zane's story relates to one of the issues I had with the book, namely, its pacing. The four main characters were rather late in having their individual stories come together. When it happened, it felt like only half of the story should have passed whereas in reality, it occurred around the 70% mark. This had the result of making the last 30% of the book feel rushed compared to the thoroughness of the beginning. It also led to the origin of certain elements of the story receiving far less coverage than I would have liked. These elements included the threat of the subway tunnels, Shawnika's new Zen lifestyle, the partial rebuilding of DC by Zane's child army and his use of the angel narrative to compel it, and also more of Grace's experiences after she leaves her home in West Virginia. The book containing a three-year time jump that skipped over a lot of details I wanted to know more about.
Another detail that was noticeably absent was an explanation of
I hope this omission will be addressed in the sequel, which I will definitely read to find out how the characters continue to progress in this new world of their own making.
This book, although featuring young characters, isn't your typical YA novel, assuming it's even really YA at all. In many YAs, the representations of violence and hardship are rather sanitized - just terrible enough to give a hint of suffering, but not so much that the characters’ hair and clothing get filthy and foul smelling. In this book, the author really goes the full distance in representing the horror of the situation: main characters forced to prevent starvation by eating rats; gun-toting gangs of kids staking out their territory in the absence of adults to stop them; sadistic casual violence; rape; murder. In addition, the death of all the adults is portrayed in lurid detail, including the millions of rotting corpses left behind in first the sweltering heat and then the freezing cold and snow.
I enjoyed this veracity even as I cringed at it. I also liked the toughness and resourcefulness of the female characters. Even Grace, who was more gentle and peaceful than Josie and Shawnika, demonstrated a quiet strength through her faith in the face of unimaginable adversity. I don't usually like stories with multiple points of view, usually finding some characters significantly more interesting than others. But in this case, I enjoyed following them all - even Zane, who was very much a character one can love to hate.
That being said, Zane's story relates to one of the issues I had with the book, namely, its pacing. The four main characters were rather late in having their individual stories come together. When it happened, it felt like only half of the story should have passed whereas in reality, it occurred around the 70% mark. This had the result of making the last 30% of the book feel rushed compared to the thoroughness of the beginning. It also led to the origin of certain elements of the story receiving far less coverage than I would have liked. These elements included the threat of the subway tunnels, Shawnika's new Zen lifestyle, the partial rebuilding of DC by Zane's child army and his use of the angel narrative to compel it, and also more of Grace's experiences after she leaves her home in West Virginia. The book containing a three-year time jump that skipped over a lot of details I wanted to know more about.
Another detail that was noticeably absent was an explanation of
I hope this omission will be addressed in the sequel, which I will definitely read to find out how the characters continue to progress in this new world of their own making.
October 10, 2017
Will have you hooked in the first chapter. A real page turner. great story!
January 23, 2019
I really liked this book, just goes to show you what kids can do when they have to!!! Is there going to be a part 2?
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews