Day Zero (Day Zero Duology #1) by Kelly deVos #bookreview #YA #thriller #suspense

Title: Day Zero

Author: Kelly deVos

Publisher: Inkyard Press

Publication Date: November 12, 2019

Page Count: 432

My rating: 4 stars

About the book:

Don’t miss the exhilarating new novel from the author of Fat Girl on a Plane, featuring a fierce, bold heroine who will fight for her family and do whatever it takes to survive. Fans of Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life As We Knew It series and Rick Yancey’s The 5th Wave series will cheer for this fast-paced, near-future thrill ride.

If you’re going through hell…keep going.

Seventeen-year-old coder Jinx Marshall grew up spending weekends drilling with her paranoid dad for a doomsday she’s sure will never come. She’s an expert on self-heating meal rations, Krav Maga and extracting water from a barrel cactus. Now that her parents are divorced, she’s ready to relax. Her big plans include making it to level 99 in her favorite MMORPG and spending the weekend with her new hunky stepbrother, Toby.

But all that disaster training comes in handy when an explosion traps her in a burning building. Stuck leading her headstrong stepsister, MacKenna, and her precocious little brother, Charles, to safety, Jinx gets them out alive only to discover the explosion is part of a pattern of violence erupting all over the country. Even worse, Jinx’s dad stands accused of triggering the chaos.

In a desperate attempt to evade paramilitary forces and vigilantes, Jinx and her siblings find Toby and make a break for Mexico. With seemingly the whole world working against them, they’ve got to get along and search for the truth about the attacks—and about each other. But if they can survive, will there be anything left worth surviving for?

Day Zero by Kelly deVos is the first book of the young adult apocalyptic thriller Day Zero Duology. The duology is set in a future version of our world when political parties have divided folks. One side known as the Spark had taken over and tried to make everyone in the world equal, dividing supplies and goods among all citizens. This however had created a depression in society so you also have the Opposition who are opposed to the Spark’s methods.

Jinx Marshall is anything but an average teen no matter how much she wants to be and would love to just bury herself in her video games. Jinx’s father though is famous, and that is not necessarily a good thing as a lot think her father is crazy being an overly zealous doomsday prepper.

After her parents divorce Jinx thought she was going to be that normal teen however one day when out with her stepsister and younger brother she has to rely on those survival skills her father had taught her when a bomb explodes in the building next to them. Once they hear the news that these explosions are world wide and her father is being blamed Jinx and her siblings end up on the run.

Day Zero is one of those young adult novels that take an apocalyptic world and once the story is established the author hits the fast forward button and proceeds into the action and adventure. Sure, even the idea of kids being chased and needing to save the world is far fetched and in turn a lot of the action but  it’s still a fun read watching it all happen. With some twists along the way this of course ends a bit up in  the air leading into the second book of the duology.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Find this book online: 

Goodreads  /   Amazon

About the author:

Kelly deVos is from Gilbert, Arizona, where she lives with her high school sweetheart husband, amazing teen daughter and superhero dog, Cocoa. She holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from Arizona State University. When not reading or writing, Kelly can typically be found with a mocha in hand, bingeing the latest TV shows and adding to her ever-growing sticker collection. Her debut novel, Fat Girl on a Plane, named one of the “50 Best Summer Reads of All Time” by Reader’s Digest magazine, is available now from HarperCollins.