For a novel that's supposed to be about killer crazy spiders, there weren't too many spider scenes.

I was hoping that this book would have crazy spider action and scare the bejeezus out of me. But I don't think there was a spider scene until the halfway point of the book. Most of the story was just a lot of characters talking and politics. I think that the other novels in this series spoiled me for the last one; they were such high-impact, adrenaline-fueled stories that this one seemed like a bit of a let-down.

One of the things I had really loved about this series were the different perspectives that were included. I loved that there were some civilians and people from various areas of the world, all reeling from this spider issue. I was eager to see how these perspectives would converge in the end. However, after reading this final book, I question the necessity for all of those viewpoints and characters. So many of them just sputtered out in this book that it felt like it was all just a moot point. After having read about all of these different characters from the other 2 books in this series, I was quite disappointed with how their stories ended in this final book. Looking back, it might have been better for the author to only have focused on a few of the core story lines and left the unnecessary ones out, since it really didn't add anything. 

The writing was still great, which made this novel move along at a fast pace. Even though not a lot was happening in terms of action, all of the plot holes were filled and I appreciated that the author caught the readers up on things from the previous novels that may have been forgotten. 

I know it sounds like I didn't love this novel. And you're right, I didn't love it. But it was still quite good. I liked the writing, and the way the story ended. I was super invested in this series, which is probably why I enjoyed this last book despite it not being as action-packed as I had hoped. If you like creepy stories, I would definitely recommend checking this series out; it is honestly so good and it's worth reading! I'm giving this book a 3/5 stars!

Someday this series will make the perfect seed for a scyfy original movie. A fun read.

Zero Day is the third and final book to The Hatching series, which I began to read in 2016. I was immediately hooked to the series and I’ve really enjoyed it. I was extremely excited to read this novel, and was looking forward to the conclusion of this series.

While the first book had some really graphic and terrifying scenes, I found that this book had very little action. There were very few thrilling scenes, which was unfortunate seeing as there were two books leading up to the climax in this novel. While I was happy to be reading about the characters I had been following in the first two novels, I just didn’t feel they were as important to the overall conclusion. Like I mentioned in my review for the second book, Skitter, I don’t think this story needed to be stretched out over three novels. There was nothing new or important that we learned about the spiders in this book. A lot of it was information we already knew from the previous books.

I still really enjoyed the writing, and I love the cinematic quality of it, but there was a lot of jumping around between different people. Sometimes, the scene was so brief that it felt like it had just been added so people would know where the character was and what was happening. It was extremely disjointed.

Also, the climax was over so fast! There was a random nuclear coup that took up the majority of the book, but the fight against the spiders occurred so quickly that it felt like the story wasn’t about the spiders at all. I didn’t even realize the climax had happened until I reached the end of the book. The whole ending was extremely rushed.

Overall, I was really disappointed by this concluding novel. I’d be interested in reading Ezekiel Boone’s future books, but I’d be hesitant to commit to another series written by him.

Zero Day by Ezekiel Boone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gotta love that Creature Feature. Or maybe I ought to modify that statement to Creatures Features. It's a spider apocalypse! New generations and smarter beasties are overrunning the world, but what is worse: the problem or the cure?

NUKES. Oh, yeah, baby. Nukes everywhere. The president is continuing to have a pretty bad day. A few others might be, too.

As always, these books are full of middling semi-sympathetic characters all trying to deal with the fallout from all the different kinds of horrors. I was only mildly invested in any of them. Fortunately, I was quite invested in the spiders and read most of the Hazmat scenes rooting for the little critters. :)

Did I have fun? Yeah, I did. Maybe not the best time ever or even within the creature-feature genre, but it was far from the worst way to spend an afternoon. It wraps up the trilogy fairly well, but I still feel a bit cheated. I almost wanted a good twist. Maybe scratch the "almost".

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!