Zeroes

By: Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan, Deborah Biancotti

Narrated by: Amber Benson

X-Men meets Marissa Meyer’s Renegades when New York Times bestselling author of the Uglies series Scott Westerfeld teams up with award-winning authors Margo Lanagan and Deborah Biancotti for this explosive trilogy filled with “cinematic nonstop action,” (Booklist) about six teens with unique abilities.

Don’t call them heroes.

But these six California teens have powers that set them apart.

Take Ethan, a.k.a. Scam. He’s got a voice inside him that’ll say whatever you want to hear, whether it’s true or not. Which is handy, except when it isn’t—like when the voice starts gabbing in the middle of a bank robbery. The only people who can help are the other Zeroes, who aren’t exactly best friends these days.

Enter Nate, a.k.a. Bellwether, the group’s “glorious leader.” After Scam’s SOS, he pulls the scattered Zeroes back together. But when the rescue blows up in their faces, the Zeroes find themselves propelled into whirlwind encounters with ever more dangerous criminals. At the heart of the chaos they find Kelsie, who can take a crowd in the palm of her hand and tame it or let it loose as she pleases.

Filled with high-stakes action and drama, Zeroes unites three powerhouse authors for the opening installment of a thrilling new series.

Zeroes Got a Straight 10

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. It was a little edgy, maybe a bit too real for 8th graders, but it was a great storyline about 6 kids with mind powers and how they control or do not control these powers within themselves. It was interesting to see this side of the Super Hero tales. I cannot wait to get my hands on the next book about how power can be corrupt, or something like that - I think it is NATE that will be bad or the antagonist in the next tale.

had some “feel-good” moments within

Zeroes is touted as being X-men meets Heroes and it really fits for this story. It follows a group of six seemingly random characters who all have different abilities. They use the typical superhero mantra’s throughout (with great power… type stuff). Follow this group of “zeroes” as they call themselves as they band together to try and work together and figure out the extent their “powers” go.

The narration for this was done by Amber Benson and she was perfect for this role. Though it could have been easily done by numerous narrators (like The Beam) one for each character. Sometimes that can become confusing. At least the authors of this realized that they were dealing with 6+ points of view and they started each chapter with a name so we know who we’re dealing with. Benson really becomes some of these characters and does a great job filling the voids that just reading the book can sometimes leave.

The story was interesting. I haven’t really watched Heroes and I’ve only seen some of the X-men movies, but this does really seem to follow the same type of story. The part that I like most is that you cannot even tell that it was written by three different authors. The fact that they pulled that off is extremely difficult and I’m glad that it worked out the way it did.

The story was very difficult to follow unless you were listening to it pretty intently. No reading while doing chores type of a book. I mostly listened while driving or working out and found myself having to go back because I wasn’t sure who’s part it was (partially because of what I mentioned earlier just having one narrator).

Overall, the story wasn’t exactly what I was hoping it would turn out to be, but it still had some “feel-good” moments within. I grabbed this audiobook just based on the one author (Westerfield), but since reading this, I may be checking into the other two authors too. This is an audiobook I’m glad I checked out, but I won’t be looking for any others (if this is made into a series) in the near future).

Audiobook purchased for review by ABR.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog

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Loved It!

This is one of the best books I've listened to this year! One of my favorite things is how uncommon the abilities of the Zeroes are. It's a very fresh take on the superhero genre!

Wait for it...

It take around 10 chapters to really start rockin but the character development and world building really needed those chapters. There are six main characters which by the end you get to see them for their past their flaws their love and their powers.

Can't wait for the next one in the series

I love everything by Scott Westerfeld. All the characters are so broken but also relatable.