Rarely have I had so much fun reading apocalyptic fiction! Ezekiel Boone brings a fast-moving plot and light touch to the conclusion of his trilogy about a plague of killer spiders. I've heard this could become a movie, and it's easy to imagine how well it will translate to the screen.

Zero Day by Ezekiel Boone is the final book in the Hatching series. The series has taken us through an apocalyptic disaster involving spiders. Told from multiple perspectives from around the world, we get the third-person POV accounts of man's reactions and attempts to survive. While we didn't get as much time with the eight-legged monsters, Boone delivered an intense climax.

disclaimer – i received a copy of this book via atria/emily bestler books in exchange for an honest review.

let me just tell you upfront that i am severely arachnophobia.
i also loathe the creepy crawly little murder bugs with every fiber of my being.

now that we’ve gotten that out-of-the-way let’s talk about ezekiel boone and his series, the hatching. i just finished zero day (book three in the series) and i’m equal parts thrilled that it’s over (did i mention the whole arachnophobia thing) and seriously considering starting the series over again because i just found it available in audio format. think about that for a moment, would you? i’m literally frozen with fear at the sight of a spider but absolutely loved this series.

zero day was a completely satisfying ending to a fantastic series about a 10,000 year old species of spider that just might be the thing to wipe out humanity forever. in the finale, boone not only ups the stakes but ratchets up the tension to the point that i don’t remember breathing during the last hour-and-a-half that i was reading. boone’s writing is masterful throughout the series but this book really showcases his ability to make the characters crawl inside your head (sorry). they’re well written and it’s easy to empathize with them, both in their personal lives and in their responses to the catastrophic threat humanity is facing. though zero day is the culmination of what in the novels is only a few weeks (from first appearance of the spiders to the end of the novel) it feels longer…it feels like forever in a world where humans are no longer the apex predator.

this series is utterly terrifying if you don’t like spiders. it’s utterly terrifying if you do like spiders for that matter. what you need to know is that it will keep you up reading until the end and you will absolutely not regret reading it. it’s not always easy for an author to fulfill the promises made in the early books of a series but ezekiel boone does it. with style.

five out of five stars

Spider Apocalypse from the Hell Spiders

I enjoyed this creepy creature feature series. I would warn anyone that REALLY doesn't like spiders to NOT read this trilogy. If one spider in the bathtub makes your skin crawl, then millions of giant spiders dissolving bodies or invading orifices will cause king-size nightmares and trips to your therapist.

If that doesn't bother you then I recommend that you read the trilogy in order - THE HATCHING, then SKITTER, and then this final book ZERO DAY.

All the books are told from many points-of-view in short chapters jumping across the U.S. and even around the world.

We find in this final book that the spiders keep surprising everyone (not good) and that not everyone in charge of the government can agree on how to handle the infestation.

The book moves quickly and I can definitely see it being made into a creepy, crawlie movie.

And the ending wound up nicely. Fun set of books.

I received this book from Emily Bestler Books through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read the book and leave an unbiased review.

I made the mistake of reading of this book without realizing it was the third book in the series. That being said, I really enjoyed this book. I was immediately enraptured by this crazy story and I had a very hard time putting it down. I was thoroughly entertained and I can't wait to see what this author comes up with next.

OK, I'm gonna be straight right at the beginning and say that I skimmed a lot of this novel. Honestly, this is the 3rd book in a trilogy and there was almost no spidery action whatsoever, just inner monologues where people had flashbacks and fond memories and stupid things like that.
Let's face it: anyone reading books like this want to read about the damned apocalypse and the monsters and how people are fighting them or get eaten, not how a ripple on a lake reminds an FBI agent of how he met his first wife (while he actually should scramble to get away from that location because of all the fallout from the nuclear bombs)!

In this third novel we still have many different POVs, some new even (and not adding anything to the plot), telling us how the spiders progress in their evolution. We also get some glimpses at what the "queens" are thinking. But although we're right in the middle of a monster apocalypse, the focus suddenly shifts in this book to a coup performed by the head of the Joint Chiefs and how the President is trying to prevent his faction from using all the nuclear weapons and just blasting everyone to oblivion. Because that is what 99% of the military like to do according to this author: kill us all before letting the spiders win, being mindless trigger-finger-happy hillbillies (while at the same time it is repeated time and time again how great the US military is and how efficient - how, if they are this stupid?!).

Seriously, not one person in this entire trilogy was ever really smart. The scientists and Gordo and Shotgun were supposed to appear smart but judging by their actions, I can't agree.

It doesn't help that I wasn't invested at all. I just didn't like ANY character here. I mean, yeah, people are flawed, but there is "flawed" and then there are the ones here. I actually wanted the spiders to win.

And the parts that could have been thrilling (like how Melanie, Amy and Fred got off the hijacked boat after the coup) weren't there! The situation was initiated and then the screen faded to black so to speak until another chapter showed them safe and sound somewhere else, remembering in one or two sentences how they supposedly made it (again, in very unrealistic terms).

So the only thing that kept me going apart from the fact that I basically never DNF a book, was the prospect of the end battle. Thus, you can imagine just how disappointed and angry I was that the action with the spiders didn't start until I had read 80% of the book!
And then, as the icing on the cake, it was all neatly wrapped up in the next 14% so the author had time to end the book by marrying off certain characters and giving us this toothache-inducing sweet ending.
The action was unbelievably short and unrealistic. I'm not talking about the scientific probability of giant spiders but of how there was this build-up over 2.8 books, with the spiders hiding, humans not really knowing what's going on, the spiders spreading all over the globe ... and then it's easy-peasy how they kill them all off, done in a few short sentences peppered with a few sacrificial lambs for good measure. Sorry, not buying it. Knowing your enemy might be half the battle, but not more.

So yeah, this is not for me and the final volume was actually worse than the other two! :(

I could not wait to read the ending to this since reading the first one! The only thing that disappointed was I didn't see or feel the spiders everywhere like I did with the first book. But that's okay! I enjoyed seeing how they were going to get Earth out of the grip of these man-eating spiders. This whole series has kept my attention and I enjoyed it VERY much!

Review

From book one this series has been amazing fun, scary as hell and written like a fast paced action/ horror film. When i first read The Hatching i thought wow this is new and exciting, book 2 Skitter… no way he could keep it up, yet he did. Would it be possible to round out the series in style?

Yes absolutely it would!

Ezekiel Boone pulls his plot threads together, we have Spiders on pause, when will they rise again? why have they paused? The US military falling out with the president and trying to pull off a military coup, a scientist trying to find the root of the problem and inventors trying to put practical solutions in place. Wrapped in with the larger global scene plot the author keeps it on a local level with snippets of the average Joe, the impacts on all participants across the country, interlinking all the people, the shared tragedy, the points where lives intersect giving a more intimate human feel to the book rather than just a global disaster.

This has major motion film written all over it, done with a classic B movie style i would be first in the line to watch it.

I highly recommend this book and this series, high entertainment, fast action, and enough spiders to make the bravest person scream.

(Parm)

I was so excited to read this, you would not believe my hysteria when I got my hands on an advance copy, I nearly hit the roof with SHEER JOY. And thankfully, this lived up to expectations! If only I had been able to pace myself instead of staying up past midnight to devour it, but I had zero willpower, it was so enthralling that I couldn't stop reading!

First things first, this is the 3rd in The Hatching trilogy - if you haven't read the first two, this isn't going to be accessible to you at all. And why would you WANT to skip the glorious madness and arachnid chaos, I don't even know!

Second, there are a lot of characters to keep straight as the story is told in the third person from many perspectives, including but not limited to the scientist in charge of investigating the spider crisis, the President's Chief of Staff, an FBI agent who originally discovered one of the first casualties on American soil, two survivalists who tinker with home-made equipment that may be of use in the battle against the spiders, a couple and a grandfather on a remote island, Prophet Bobby Higgs....and these are just the perspectives that recur throughout the novel! There are several other one-and-done chapters from random characters in different parts of the world, giving us a small insight into what civilians and soldiers make of the spiderpocalypse and how they're coping. 

Kudos to the author for being able to endear 99% of this large and sprawling cast to me near-instantaneously and make me root for their survival; normally in horror books, I thrive on rooting against people and wanting them to die, but this trilogy had me doing the exact opposite! The prologue introduces us to astronauts returning from space and we never hear from them again, which was a shame because just in a few short pages, I was interested in this crew and enjoyed their perspective on returning from a triumphant mission to Mars, expecting parades and fanfare, but being greeted by darkness and death and man-eating spiders (total buzzkill). I really loved the creative and unlikely choices that the author made on whose headspace to feature, I found it riveting!

That said, I have to admit that not all of these characters' chapters contribute to moving the plot forward, and that there is probably some merit to the opinion that they could've been trimmed down to focus more on the action instead of how Thuy's pregnancy was proceeding or how Mike was getting on with his ex-wife and her new partner. Prophet Bobby Higgs was an odd choice to bring back - I thought his storyline was going somewhere, but it ended abruptly; I didn't mind him being unceremoniously booted off-page, but there were call-backs to his plot in Skitter that I could barely recall, and it seemed a waste of effort to remind us of his personal issues with no pay-off. (perhaps this was an attempt at trope subversion, in which case I heartily applaud the decision not to bring a religious cult into the series because brainwashed cult followers are a DNW)

A common criticism that I've read in other reviews is that for a book about spiders terrorizing our planet, there isn't a lot of on-page clashes with said spiders - and that really took me aback because I  hadn't even noticed. There are a few chapters from a spider queen's POV which may be why I didn't really register the lack of spider clashes because these intermittent peeks into her mind kept the threat active and had me on edge waiting for the inevitable battle.

Basically, if you're expecting unrelenting spider shenanigans, you may be disappointed because this book, in contrast to its predecessors, is more interested in what the humans are up to and their conflicts with each other (see: military coup) and their plans to eradicate the spiders. This is book 3 and I've grown attached to the characters that I've been following through The Hatching and Skitter, so (aside from Prophet Bobby Higgs whose POV is the only one I found to be useless and boring) I was more than happy to keep dipping back into each person's head and see how they were doing.

I actually enjoyed the politicking and seeing the military vs presidential factions and the bloodshed over their difference of opinion on how best to handle this crisis. The spiders presented the obvious conflict, but people turning on each other was just as interesting to me and I found an equal amount of tension in waiting to see how that would pan out. Often humanity is its own worst enemy and I thought it was very true to real life that we might end up dooming ourselves in a frenzied response to the spiderpocalypse.

Perhaps the ending was a little anti-climactic, as even I who ardently loves this series can see that it was a tad too simple and it doesn't feel that realistic that more people didn't die along the way to the thrilling conclusion. But I don't really care, tbh, because as I said, I loved pretty much all the characters and didn't want ANYONE to die, so I'm not going to be critical about how there weren't enough deaths!

This was a wild roller-coaster of an experience and I enjoyed every moment. Fans of dark and gritty books may not find it as satisfying since it's low on the body count and perhaps overly optimistic, but it suited me perfectly as a fun escapist read. I look forward to more from Ezekiel Boone, hopefully sooner rather than later because I need a new adrenaline fix ASAP!

Catnip:

Excellent writing, sympathetic and easy to root for characters, tense and thrilling plot. This was a rewarding conclusion to the series and an immensely satisfying read.

Pet hates:

Bea was completely pointless as her whole existence was tied to being a pain in the ass to Pierre. Her shrill and shrewish behavior was without context and a waste of time.

Personal Rating: 5 out of 5 kitties recommend this book!

Finally the last instalment of Ezekiel Boon's eight legged tale Zero Day!! I feel zero day brought together the Hatching and Skitter well, a good combination of skin crawling action and immersive story telling. The continuation of character building was also well done. However it was not as un-put-a-downable as The Hatching was and i did struggle at some points during the middle but all in all I enjoyed Zero Day a lot and would definitely recommend it

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!

To say that the world went to Hell in a handbasket is putting it mildly. America isn’t doing so well. The first spider outbreak was fast and furious, killing millions before the spiders mysteriously just died off. The second wave was worse, with the spiders coming at humans in new and sneakier ways. And now, with roads destroyed, communication iffy, the spiders still coming, and everyone pointing the blame at someone else, it’s not looking too good.

I really enjoyed the first two books and my imagination ran wild as to how the author would wrap up his series. There’s lots of characters and many I’d grown fond of. But, being a horror novel, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see some of them meet bloody, sticky ends. While I felt the author played it safe in the beginning, I never let my guard down.

My spidey sense was tingling as the book raced to its conclusion. I couldn’t see the ending and was happy with how the author wrapped it up. And while I wouldn’t have minded a bit more spider action, this was still a creeping, crawling thrill.

Y'ALL! We made it to the end, and man was that one helluva ride!
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I don't know why it is taking me so long to review this book. I literally have almost nothing negative to say about it. I loved every minute of this serious, and I am so honored that I got the chance to early review each of these books thanks to Atria and Netgalley!

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This book was everything I hoped for it to be, and more. I had a few ideas where Mr. Boone might take this story, but it was amazing to watch it all unfold.

The second book was considerably slower paced than the first and third book, but man was this worth the slow ride because this was one hell of an epic conclusion.

I don't want to spend time giving you all a recap of the story because a) SPOILERS!! & b) Y'all can read... I mean Goodreads give you a nice little blurb about the book.

Anywhoo, here are a few of my favorite things about this book!
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1. President Stephanie Pilgrim
She is one BAD BITCH and I loved her. She took no man's shit, and I had so much respect for her. Sometimes I feel like male authors have a hard time accurately capturing the voice of a strong female character, but Boone did his research here because Pilgrim was so authentic and SO BADASS. I just adored her.

Her character wasn't always the most likable, and she didn't necessarily always make the best decisions (but who am I to judge, I have no clue how I'd handle the spider apocalypse!) but her character felt authentic and true. Everything that she did, she did with honor, integrity, and within reason. There were no flashy moves just for the sake of flashy-ness; she was brilliant and calculated and was everything I wanted out of a Lady Prez.

2. Everything was realistic
Okay, hear me out. I know this is a work of fiction about the end of the world via spiders. I get it; not exactly everyone's idea of realistic. HOWEVER, I would argue that everything that happened in this book seemed realistic within the construct of its world. Have you ever read a book where even though you KNOW its fantasy, something just seems a little too fantastic even for that fantasy world? There was none of that here.

Everything in this book seemed completely plausible, and the characters handled all of their trials and tribulations within reason. No one all of a sudden because badass warrior princesses who know how to fight like a goddamn ninja (I'm looking at you YA dystopian fiction). People harness realistic skills that helped them solve a problem - and if they didn't have any skills they died. It doesn't get any more realistic than that, amirite?

3. It felt sciencey
Again, I know this book is a work of fiction that is very loosely based in reality; BUT it felt real. The entire time I read this book I could feel thousands of little spiders crawling all over me. The writing was so smart, and so well done that I was BELIEVING EVERY SECOND OF IT.
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There is something to be said about an author who can write something so unrealistic and make it so terrifyingly real.

WELL DONE, SIR.
WELL. DONE.

Final Rating: 4.5 / 5 stars

The last in the spiders take over the world trilogy. That says it all fun , well written pure pleasure pulp.

Thanks so much to NetGalley, Atria Books and Ezekiel Boone for the opportunity to read this entire series, culminating in Zero Day.

This was such a fun, creepy series about flesh-eating spiders that overrun the world. This book has everything coming to an end - but will it be with nuclear bombs that would destroy the rest of the US? That's what one faction of the government wants and it's a race to see if the scientists can figure out the newest spiders to hatch and kill them before everything is wiped out. Loved these characters - a great ending to the series! Highly recommended!

A fantastic end to the series! Ezekiel Boone hits it out of the park with one of the most thrilling stories in a long time. Look forward to more from this writer!

Thanks to Netgalley and Atria for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review. 4.5 stars from me!

Seriously, if you are at all interested in movie-speed horror/thriller novels, then stop reading this right now, go to your local bookstore, your local library, Amazon, wherever you need to, and get your hands on The Hatching. Do it. Do it now, so you're prepared when the arachnapocalypse happens.

The final book starts with a few bangs -- some betrayals, attempted coups, crazy deaths, etc -- just like you'd expect if you'd read The Hatching and Skitter. And yes, you get quite a few more character deaths... duh. That's the point of Spidergeddon, isn't it? That some of the hoo-mens are going to kick the bucket. Or get infested with eggs and burst forth with a new swarm of spiders. Or get injected with a paralytic that eats away at your insides until they're mush while being wrapped up in spider-silk and dying a slow horrible death.

Seriously, you're still reading this? You haven't left to go to Barnes & Noble or The Shop Around the Corner or Fox Books to get your copy of the Hatching yet? LEAVE NOW. GO. SHOO.

While the ending is just slightly not as satisfying as *I* might have wanted, overall, it's a very satisfying ending and certainly shows the persistent fighting spirit of the human condition.

Okay, I'm not going to talk anymore because you're not listening to me. You're jingling those keys or whipping out that smartphone because you're hankering to get your copy, right? Well go on then. Don't let me keep you. Hey, what's that crawling up your leg?

Having read the first two books in this series, The Hatching and Skitter, and rating both of them 5-Stars, I was eager to dive into Zero Day but also a little skittish (Ha, see what I did there?) There was a considerable delay for book 3 while Mr. Boone wrote a book outside The Hatching series and I was concerned about his attention being divided. Unfortunately my fears seem to be well founded as there was a significant drop off in overall quality in comparison to the first two series installments, at least in my opinion.

One of the key factors contributing to the excellence of books 1 and 2 was the diversity and richness of all the interwoven storylines and characters balanced against a horrific apocalyptic event. The development of the larger story advanced at an even pace to allow for each storyline to mature and add depth to the big picture. They all built on each other and added something unique and important to the whole.

Zero Day was just the opposite. While the writing was still superb, the whole story felt rushed in an effort to wrap things up and finish the series. Several of the compelling characters were reduced to simple background noise as their stories played out with seemingly no purpose other than to let readers know what happened to the characters. Even the climactic ending felt rushed and unfulfilling.

Overall, it seems as if this series could have and should have been extended to at least one more book in order to do justice to the characters and plot. I'm still giving it three stars on the strength of the writing and the originality of the premise but I'm sad that the series didn't have an ending worthy of the the greatness achieved in books 1 and 2.

I’ve looked forward to Zero Day, the third book in the Hatching trilogy, for quite a while now. Even though Skitter disappointed me with its not-so-tasty-cream-filling status between the decent parts of a cookie, I still held strong for the series. I fully expected Ezekiel Boone to deliver epicness in spades for the wrap up to this eight-legged three-volume arachno-terror.  Expecting anything epic from anyone is always setting yourself up for disappointment. How much you like the author’s writing in general means the disappointment will vary from “Eh, figures” to “My god, good sir, how could you do this to me?”

I was  somewhere near the “Eh, figures” end of the scale.

Zero Day started off with some word play that had me laughing. “Like two bullfrogs mating on a cymbal” is just classic imagery.  However, by the halfway point, the humor felt as forced as when Marvel does an all-star cast superhero movie and tries to give everyone the snarkiest line in the script. It starts off with chuckles, and by the end of the movie, you’ve stopped listening to the painful dialogue and started mentally organizing your to-read-list for the next six months. Luckily, that was me exaggerating a bit, as Zero Day wasn’t quite that bad. I was only tempted to organize the next month’s or so. I think Boone was trying to embrace the B-movie cheese that these books have the potential for.

It wasn’t until there were roughly 80 pages left in Zero Day that it felt like the author started to really draw everything together. Finally, things started to happen that involved the spiders and not politics or other human drama. (Not that I minded the touch o’ love scene with Abuela, mind you!) I was happy at this point, and began to get fully immersed into the story. Bring the pedipalps, the teeth, the eight-legged freaks.  I was ready for some monster killing!

And then at about 30 pages left, I stared at the page. That was it? That was the grand climax? Nope. Not happening. He was going to pull something at the very end. … Yep, apparently he was. And gah! C’mon, it wasn’t even his first time! It’s understandable when someone  cuts loose a bit too early and a touch too unskilled on their first time! Queue footage of me mentally stomping around in my head and throwing things, before forcing a grin and pretending that it was okay. That it ended just fine. I was fine with the touchy-feelies and warm’n’fuzzies afterward and not in the least bit dissatisfied.

Except, no. NO. My happy was not had. He got me riled up and rarin’ to go, and then he finished before I was ready for it. Grr.

Okay, overall, when taking into account that the Hatching trilogy is Ezekiel Boone’s first series (and first three books on the whole, at least according to Goodreads), he didn’t do bad. I think the first book is definitely the best of the three. It’s clear, though, that he had a vision, and he did his best to stick to it. Writing a trilogy about the world being overtaken by spiders was an ambitious project, to say the least, especially since it had mass release and the expectations that went with it.. He did a good job, all things considered.