Austin, Texas (PRWEB) July 11, 2017 -- TIME ZERO by Carolyn Cohagan garnered First Place at this year’s International Book Awards in the “Young Adult Fiction” Category for its portrayal of a dystopian Manhattan in which all current extremist rules oppressing women exist in one society.
A women’s rights advocate, award-winning author and founder of Girls with Pens, Cohagan was inspired to write TIME ZERO to encourage discussion on existing religious and cultural restrictions oppressing women around the world.
"I was particularly exasperated by the hypocrisy that I felt Americans displayed when they discussed ‘fundamentalism,’ as if it were a problem that only occurred outside of the United States and only pertained to Islam,” Cohagan said.
Set in a dystopian Manhattan, TIME ZERO follows the plight of 15-year-old protagonist Mina Clark, whose only weapon is literature in a society where girls aren’t allowed to get an education, they need permission to speak to boys, and all marriages are negotiated by contract.
Beyond achieving top placement in the 2017 International Book Awards, TIME ZERO was also a 2016 Foreword Indie Winner and a finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Award. Seventeen Magazine listed the novel as one of the “Best YA Summer Books of 2016” along with coverage in the New York Times, the New York Daily News, Time Out, and the Austin Chronicle.
Actress and women's rights activist Elizabeth Banks (The Hunger Games) praised TIME ZERO as "a compelling, unexpected, thrilling read that elevates the young adult genre with smart and ground-breaking social commentary." National Book Award winner Tim O'Brien called the book "a cautionary meditation on religious extremism, intolerance, violence, and the effects of fanaticism on the human psyche."
The next installment of the TIME ZERO trilogy, titled TIME NEXT, is slated for the spring of 2018.
Julia Drake, Wildbound PR, http://www.timezerobook.com, +1 3103596487 Ext: 1, [email protected]
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