Reviewed by Dinah Roseberry for Readers' Favorite

OMG, what to say about B. J. Hyman’s Day Zero: The Book of Patrick without spoilers. Okay, let’s give it a shot. Day Zero is a break-neck speed of a story about Patrick Elderidge’s life…uh...non-life…uh well, it’s about Patrick Elderidge. He’s the hero and good guy. Then there are other characters, also good guys. Except Reuben and he’s not a nice guy. He’s a bad guy—evil actually. But he’s not really there…sorta kinda. Anyway, as you go through Patrick’s Day Zero—a complete mystery to him—you’ll find that it’s a horribly bad day gone worse…that easily moves into days…and then into…well, maybe forever. I can tell you that before you read this book, it would be good to check out the stability of any ceiling fans in your home, particularly in the bedroom, and especially if it’s over your bed. I know, I know; what? Just do it; you’ll be glad you did down the line. No sense in taking chances—fiction built on life and so forth. There’s a love interest—Allison—and an office where Patrick works—when the janitor isn’t taking all his stuff away because he’s …well, not exactly there….and then there’s a girl who comes out of fire. (You might say she’s hot—like a phoenix rising…I like her.) And there’s lightning following a guy. ZAP! There’s even a good plausible explanation for ghosts. Patrick has to go through to get through and understand Day Zero—though once he understands what’s going on, things go speedily downhill until he thinks of super heroes. There. I don’t think I gave too much away. B. J. Hyman’s Day Zero: The Book of Patrick is a kinda sci fi, kinda horror, kinda what-the-hell-I-don’t-ever-want-to-be-this-guy sort of book. It’s like watching a train wreck, and you can’t look away, because if you do, you most assuredly will miss something that you need to know. Like maybe a taxi cab about to hit you.

What I really liked about B. J. Hyman’s Day Zero: The Book of Patrick is that every single character is written from the first person, I. I don’t think I’ve read a book like that in recent memory, but if I were Patrick’s friend, memory issues would be usual. I could get into the characters' heads one at a time, and that way, I could feel down to the core what that individual was going through and how they connected to the others. The cool thing about this style is that it moves super-fast and this one is dialog driven. Let me tell you, B. J. Hyman is a master at dialog, and I love dialog that moves a story forward. Hyman is so good at it that I didn’t want to put the book down. There’s no good stopping place—you simply have to know what’s going to happen next. Just one more page. Or ten. It speeds towards the finish so fast that one can easily forget that there’s no new page after the last page. (No worries, though; more is coming from B. J. Hyman. YAY!) You’ll have fun reading Hyman’s Day Zero: The Book of Patrick. You just will—no spoiler there!