I have tried to read this over the course of two years since receiving an advance copy however I've never been able to get into this novel and I'm giving up and unfortunately dnf-ing this novel at 13%

This is an interesting take on the post-apocalyptic genre, with a specific focus on CCTV in London. It is interesting to see alternating views of the same situation within this book and I enjoyed the writing style.

I fancied reading something from a dystopian genre and found this book set in a divided post-apocalyptic London. When you think about all the security cameras in our present society, this really makes the blurb of this book not such a fantastical idea. I mean camera’s watching your every move, monitoring everything you do, who you speak to, where you do your shopping, what you buy etc.

I have seen two different covers for this book so far. I have pictured them both below and commented on each cover, it would be interesting to see who prefers which one. Both of the covers feature an eye prominently on them.

The palest cover is in a cream colour and everything within the eye is orange as if the sky is on fire! There is also a figure caught within the eye on what seems to be a background of ruined buildings. There is also an aircraft of some sort in the orange sky. All of this makes perfect sense when you read the book.

The other cover which I initially said I preferred has the main colour of orange, and is more simplistic to the other cover and seems to make more of the eye symbol. The cover still features the eye and the person within it being watched.

After reading the book, I do like both covers. I think they are both eye catching and would stand out on a bookstore shelf well. Though I should admit after reading the book my favourite cover is the one with the white background. It represents the book and its contents down to the little details featured on the cover.

The genres I have seen listed for this book are Sci-Fi, Literary fiction, Teens, YA and Dystopian which all fit well. I would also add that it has post-apocalyptic elements too.

The city is a very dangerous place to live and the government have divided London. On one side there is Lex whose dad is suddenly becoming more important to the rebels who are planning some sort of revolt. Lex being trained as a messenger for The Corp. His job is to deliver messages from one Corp member to another, he doesn’t ask questions and he has to quick on his feet. He must learn all about different routes to take to throw those who are watching off his trail. and he should never ask questions about the messages. Messengers should not speak about the messages they deliver, or whom they deliver them rom and to. They are also not supposed to speak to other messengers. Though in one part of the book, an older, more experienced messenger talks to Lex and gives him tips to make money by selling contraband goods. It’s whilst selling these goods, which happen to be highly sought after cigarettes that Lex meets Zoe whom he feels immediately drawn to. Zoe is working on the patch Lex begins to sell his cigarettes. It’s a busy section of road, with traffic lights, so when vehicles stop the “vendors” literally pounce attempting to sell various items to them. From the cigarettes Lex sells, to Zoe’s Lollipops, there is even a guy washing windscreens trying to make some money to live on. Lex should have permission for the man who runs this patch but because he is a Messenger for The Corp, so to an extent he is “untouchable” and so permitted to sell wherever he wishes.

On the other side of London and “life” is Alan who works at The Base. He operates the drones. Alan still lives at home with his mother who doesn’t seem to approve of where he works anymore. His mother doesn’t want her son operating a drone, observing people. When she learns that he has been promoted and chosen to control an armed drone she begs him to stay at home, to not go to work, to change his job. However, Alan is all caught up in the camaraderie within the Base. He also has his eyes set on a female he has seen at the base who he would like to impress. You can safely say that Alan is somewhat carried away with the importance of his job and hasn’t really thought through that whenever he presses that button he will kill real people, its not just a video game, or a boring people watching, observation job. He may press that button and could not only kill his target, there could be collateral damage and deaths. Alan becomes quite attached to the man’s family whom he has been watching and reporting on. Alan knows the man whom he only refers to as a number in his reports is a member of The Corp, who wish to revolt against the government. It is part of Alan’s job to gather evidence of where the rebel meetings are held, as well as how the individual rebels communicate with each other. Alan accepts that he may be the one who presses the button and kills the man, but he hasn’t fully thought out the fact that when he is ordered to press the button that delivers the bomb that kills the man he may also be killing this man’s family whom he has become so attached to. This man has a son, who looks around Alan’s age, he also has a wife and daughter. Can Alan press the button that launches the bomb that will kill them and anyone around them too?

I enjoyed looking at the two differing views on the same city and what life is like for both Lex and Alan. Lex and Alan may be working for opposing sides but as you read more about them you are surprised to learn they have a lot of similarities such as inexperience and lack of confidence with girls. They both have jobs where they have to do as they are instructed no question asked. They perform duties without questioning, or knowing why or what the end result is and how it will affect everyone.

At one point in the book Lex has to choose whether to listen to his father and stay close to home or to keep his date with Zoe. His decision over what you may think is a trivial choice ends up drastically changing what could/should have been.

I really liked both of the main characters, although Lex and Alan are on opposing sides of this “war” I feel in a different setting they could possibly have been very good friends. Both Lex and Alan are, in my opinion victims of circumstance and of which side of the divided London they live on.

At the end of the book there is an “after the event” catch up with the characters which I found quite interesting and enjoyed reading. I loved that this was a story of one place, London. It is a London divided and as the reader we hear the two sides to the story and the divided London through Lex and Alan.

I felt the book was a little stilted in places but perhaps it was meant to be that way. The book was certainly thought provoking and had me making possible similarities between the book and the possibilities of this actually occurring in our present day. I suppose I am trying to say this book is eerily realistic fiction!

This book shows the effects of war from both sides, which is still happening today. The story follows two boys on opposite sides, one who lives in the Strip, another who is controlling a military drone from The Base.

The story made a huge impact on me. The author is very clever turning a real life war into a "dystopian" world (which is how I viewed the book until I realised what the author did). The Strip is part of London in the centre which has been bombed and tensions are rising for another bombing. The civilians don't know who or what is out there, why there's bombing is never explained. It just happens and impacts their lives in a horrific way.

William Sutcliffe is becoming one of my favourite authors, this is the second book that he's written that's made me think and learn about the world.

I found this to be a really compelling dystopian fiction, I loved the descriptive language of a war torn future London. I also found the characters to be really likeable.
Definitely recommend reading this book!

New futuristic action from fan-favourite author William Sutcliffe - two teenage boys on opposite sides of a struggle between citizens vs Government have their lives collide dramatically without ever meeting each other. Lex runs messages across London to freedom fighters, on the guidance of his father, who the authorities have tagged as target #K622. Across town, Alan has just been recruited by the army to fly armed drones to take out the terrorist known as…#K622. Probably best known for his brilliant adult ‘anti-The-Beach’ novel ‘Are You Experienced’, Sutcliffe’s YA writing has been challenging by comparison and perhaps not given him the recognition he deserves. The mixture of urban dystopia, gaming, and adult themes may well make this the book that pushes him over into greater success.

I'm not impressed, not impressed at all. Thisnwas supposed to be an interesting take on Big Brother, but it simply didn't develop. My main issue, even though there was way more than just that, was the misrepresentation of female characters, or rather the lack female characters whatsoever - there were only two female characters who had some kind of a voice and even they were only there to fill in the role of romantic interests. This was just not for me.

Set in a dystopian future, the inhabitants of London are at war.
Lex lives on The Strip, an area of war-torn housing still partially standing. He is lucky compared to the many sleeping rough around the city. He has a home and a family. His father is on the side of freedom and Lex begins to help him with his underground activities.
Alan also has family. But his mother doesn't support his drone-flying work because Alan is being trained to kill dissenters like Lex's father, tracking them with drones and unleashing deadly weapons on them. For Alan, his work is rather like a computer game, but his targets are real people like Lex's father.
A great premise for a book but it didn't quite work for me. Firstly, I would have liked to understand a little more about the war and what it was about. We are told very little about it. What was the cause of the rift between the people?
Then the character development of Alan, in particular, just didn't feel plausible. I couldn't really understand his extreme attitudes to the war, his job and his mother. I felt in general that the book's characters could have been more sensitively drawn.
And I wished that the climax of the book and its conclusion could have been more tightly drawn. For me, the pacing of the last section of the book really jarred and I felt somewhat short-changed by it.
Nevertheless, as a whole, the book feels like it has the underlying bones of a really good story. I could imagine it working well as a movie.
Many thanks to netgalley and Bloomsbury for a copy of the book in return for an honest review.

Did not finish as copy received was so badly formatted it was not enjoyable to read.

The novel centers on the stories of Lex and Alan. Not much older than one another they live considerably different lives that happen to be forever linked. Lex is a teenager who likes to play video games, hates school and loves the feel of adrenaline. He lives in the Strip — a leftover bombed part of London where misery, grief and desperation breathes from every corner, ruled by the Corps — a rebellion group. Alan also likes to play video games and hates school, however, he is a drone pilot working for the military in the Base, monitoring targets and launching missiles to the Strip. 

If I have to come up with a key theme, something that makes the novel stands out from the rest, I would probably say it’s the human will to survive. Sometimes an instinct, sometimes a pure drive — the characters don’t have anything left to live for, but survive. Day by day, year by year, they see their city and homes shatter to pieces. They don’t have dreams, they have never moved beyond the perimeter of the Strip and have never tasted what freedom really feels. Fear and grief had never left them. Yet they find things to fight for, a willingness somewhere buried deep inside them, pushing them to grasp life and clutch to it, because it’s all they have. Living for the ones that are still there, trying to create some normalcy where no one really remembers what normal had felt like long time ago. All of them know pain and had come to the understanding of how brief the human life could be. 
As much as the protagonists are the heart of the novel, you don’t find yourself deeply concerned about them, because following their journey, reading their thoughts, you know just like they do that every person they see and come in contact with is just a dot in the bigger picture. 

I kind of wish the author had shown us more of the world behind the Base and the gears behind it, but I know it’s not really needed, the book is not about politics and war, it’s about people’s lives.

It’s a novel that has a message and promptly delivers it, well-written, often falls more bitter than sweet and yet that’s the charm of it — to keep living when sweetness is rare and to keep looking for it. 

I have kindly received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing in exchange of a fair review.

I found this novel to be pretty disjointed and poorly paced. It tells the story of Lex, a teenage boy living in the remains of London and Alan, a young man who works as a drone operative for the military. The basic premise here is sound, but I felt that the author was more concerned about depicting the horror of drone strikes than actually telling a story. The characters were all very stereotypical and just not particularly believable, doing and saying things that I thought weren't credible in the situation. The bulk of the story happens over a reasonably short period of time and then thirty years of time are told in a couple of chapters, which was a bit whiplash inducing. Overall, I just thought that this was a fairly disappointing book that tried to do a lot but didn't manage anything successfully.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

London is divided. War damaged and savage.

Lex lives in The Strip, poverty stricken and constantly surveyed by drones, he longs for something more - a world with fresh air and space. Alan is a drone operator. His task, as he sees it, is little different from the computer games he loves, spying on the people of The Strip, with power coming from his armed drone. As rebels rise, can faith be restored in a city deeply damaged?

This had a lot of promise, and for a relatively short novel, it still managed to pack a reasonable punch. Lex is as likeable as Alan is unlikeable. They're the ying and yang to each other, which sets a good balance to the novel. The concept is also intriguing - a near future dystopian London, with surveillance similar to Big Brother, filled with citizens prone to paranoia. I found the imagery wonderfully described.

However, I often found it difficult to like the main characters. Lex is dull at times, to the point I would have preferred to see things through his father's point of view, while Alan is deeply unlikeable with next to no redeeming qualities. This often made it difficult for me to feel anything towards him, and I admit I did struggle to finish this. The story itself wasn't bad, but the characters themselves really let this novel down. A little more charisma and affection goes a long way.

I also would have appreciated a bit more backstory as to why London is like the way it is. More dedication to some world building would have prevented me from getting confused about what was going on, and where people were in relation to each other.

A promising idea, with detailed descriptions, but a little lacking in content.

Lex lives in London - or what is left of it, with his twin sisters, mother and mysterious Dad; a member of the Corps. Struggling to find money to make ends meet, Lex accepts a job offer from his Dad to deliver secret envelopes to and from other members of the community.

Alan is a drone operator. He has been appointed to watch after #K622 - Lex's dad. For now, Alan watches his every move - reports on where he goes, who he meets and how he gets there. Until he is appointed with an armed drone.

This book held SO much promise - a dystopian London in the midst of war, two contrasting characters who could develop so much and the opportunity to engage the reader in an ethical battle.

Disappointingly, I had to finish this book at 57% of the way through, I just could not go any further.

My reasons:

The author introduces two "love interests" to the main characters AT THE EXACT SAME TIME in the story with no good reason at all. Does this further the plot? Not really. I am so sick of reading stories where the romance is so obviously forced and the two characters are in love with each other within five pages. No.
The two main characters are so UNINTERESTING. Do I care what happens to these characters? No, which is the main reason I gave up reading. 
The city itself is not explained very well - I found it very hard to get my head around where Alan was located in comparison to Lex.
Halfway through the book (almost exactly), time jumps ahead three years. THREE YEARS. With not much happening to warrant this jump at all. 
There is a sense that there is a lot happening but also nothing happening at all - it drags. A LOT.
I wanted so much to like this book and keep on reading, but unfortunately, there are so many better books in the world I could be spending my time on.

UK setting cleverly brings the chilling reality of global conflicts closer to home & offers viewpoints from both sides while exploring pertinent issues. Characters would benefit from a bit more depth but overall a pacy, thought-provoking read.

Short, powerful dystopia - a Big Brother world with targeted missiles and a frightening look at both sides of the divide

In '1984' we do not see behind the mask of the Party. It is all the more insidious for it. Here, Sutcliffe lets us see a real 'drone', a gamer who wins himself a job through his talent at piloting the flying drones that spy on citizens. It seems almost a games as he watches his target, pushes buttons, enjoys his wage and power.

On the flip side, we also watch the target's son and his life down below in a London that's been sealed off and near-destroyed by wars, bombs and constant attacks on rebels.

Alan is hardly a likeable young man, he is puffed up with self-worth. His mother tries to convince him to quit his job, but he can see nothing wrong with it, he is doing good work. Lex lives with the consequences of the bombings that pilots such as Alan are part of. His father, injured in one such attack, is now a leading member of the rebels and as such has been targeted by a drone, putting Lex and their family in danger.

A tense story in which you know not everyone may stay safe, it feels desolate and dirty, a near future and a back-and-forth that moves quickly.

Would make a good short TV series, some wonderful images of a broken London (families in the depths of the British Library sheltering from missile strikes), and I really liked the character development, especially Alan who has the furthest to travel as a burgeoning adult.

Great creation of a broken and brutalised world, it felt real - I was glad to look up and see it hadn't really happened. A good example of how technology can dehumanise - plenty to discuss for book groups.

Suitable for teen readers but one I would also recommend to fans of Orwell / Huxley and other dystopian novels.

With thanks to Netgalley for the advance reading copy.

This was a chilling look at a near future dystopian London, a war zone policed by drones. The story is told from two points of view by two teenaged boys, one on each side of the war. Within it is a poignant tale of first love, a Resistance movement and a thought provoking look at what it means to be a drone pilot.

I found the descriptions of the training drone pilot kind of awful. Recruited as one of the most promising gamers of his age, there really is no difference for him between playing a simulation and striking in actuality.
"When they look almost identical, how am I supposed to find a  response to the shift from zapping pixels to ripping apart skin and bone?"
Recommended.
Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this book. All opinions are my own. (less)

This was another book that just didn't dragged through most of the book. I liked the setting a lot and it seemed really interesting, but so little happened except at the beginning and end.

Alan was slightly more interesting than Lex, because it was interesting to see into the mind of someone who is so willing to kill people. It was interesting to see how he justified it to himself and how his world was shaken when it came to Lex.

Lex however seemed only really to be there to have the romance. It just seemed rather pointless that there wasn't more to the plot like that.

The ending was good, but I would have liked to see more that happened between the attack and the ending. I would have liked to know what happened to change everything so much.

This book just disappointed me really and I wish it had been better.

I enjoyed reading the first part of this book. I thought the world building was fantastic, and I especially liked that it was set in London; I feel like I have read so few 'disaster novels' that are set in cities that I actually know, so I thought it was really cool to be able to see places that I knew so well. 

I think We See Everything would have benefited from a little more detail as to why London had been separated from the rest of the country, how long it had been like that for, what the 'terrorists' and 'anti-terrorists' were trying to accomplish. Without these details it was difficult to see which character or side were in the right, which I think is what the author was going for, and I appreciate that the reader was meant to choose for themselves who was right, but it all felt a little vague. It's more enjoyable, in my opinion, to back someone when you know what you're backing - even if it's obviously a biased perspective.

I also found that the last part of the book was a little rushed. Sutcliffe started summarising the next few years of the characters' lives, which personally I don't really enjoy in writing.

Unfortunately there was a glitch either in my kindle or in the copy of the ebook that I was sent, meaning that the novel was repeated. This meant that when I was coming to the end of the book, my kindle was telling me that I was only 45-50% through it, and so I read the end of the book thinking that I still had 50% to read - this meant that I was a little confused when it suddenly ended and may have contributed to the fact that I was so unsatisfied with We See Everything upon finishing it.

I'm only giving We See Everything two stars. I thought it had a lot of potential, and there were parts of the book that I really did enjoy - some quotes in particular that I loved, have highlighted for really good reasons, but unfortunately these were not enough to save the book for me.

This is compelling dystopian fiction set in a future with a divided London in conflict. Within The Strip are a desperate, poverty stricken people under 24 hour government and military surveillance, through drones. They are constantly being bombed by aircraft and missiles. There are many refugees and homeless, with people suffering from PTSD, in catatonic states, and struggling to barely survive. The landscape is one of bombed out homes and ruins. We are given no information as to how this situation arose. Lex is a young 16 year old boy with a father in The Corps, a rebel group endeavouring to fight back against the oppression they face on The Strip and are the highest value targets for the military. The book begins where the father barely escapes a bombing that wipes out the entire leadership of The Corps. Alan is a gifted gamer recruited by the military, his task is to carry out drone surveillance of target K622 who he knows will be killed, its just a question of when. His target is Lex's father. The narrative is delivered through the perspective of Lex and Alan.

Alan is a proud patriot, seeing himself as a soldier, doing a vital job in defending his nation, playing war games, although the job he does involves no risk to him whatsoever. He has never known his father, and feeling a gaping hole in his life because of this. He has a disconnect with his mother who thinks he has blood on his hands because of what he does. As he carries out his surveillance, he begins to connect with the family as human beings, particularly Lex whom he begins to identify with. Lex finds himself in the throes of an intense and all encompassing first love affair with Zoe. Zoe is emotionally damaged by the killing of her father in the bombing of their home. At the same time, Lex finds himself invited to and wanting to play a vital role in The Corps. This puts him under heavy pressure, stress and conflict as he makes decisions that endanger him and his family. Alan is climbing the promotional ladder, celebrating his first kill, and playing a critical role in the bombardment of The Strip when doubts begin to enter his mind.

William Sutcliffe superimposes on a future London a scenario that is reality in many parts of the world today. For example, we know that gamers have been recruited to perform Alan's role in the US military, finding it easy to kill 'terrorist' enemies, accepting civilian collateral damage, as they have no emotional connection to and have ceased to see them as human. It is much more difficult to kill when you have developed a connection and a person becomes real. Vital issues such as the lack of human rights in The Strip are raised, tragedies are inevitable and the dubious morality behind such flawed government and military strategies emerges. Sutcliffe brillliantly creates and enters the minds of two young males on separate sides of the conflict, making both of them come alive and feel authentic to the reader. He impressively captures the young male psyche, the emotional uncertainties, raging hormones, intimacy issues, the pull of family and the passion of first love, in a thoughtful and beautiful way. A brilliant novel which I highly recommend. Many thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC.

A novel centred on a ravaged, divided London told from the perspective of two quite similar boys (Alex and Lex). It is an interesting premise though truth be told I only made it half way through after trying again and again to pick up and persist with it. The characters are fairly one dimensional, unrelatable and generally uninteresting. I found it immensely difficult to even care about the characters, what happened to them or indeed the world in which they inhabit.

It should get you thinking about surveillance and drone attacks especially given their current deployment by the US… Unfortunately, it just didn’t work for me. The lack of backstory is particularly confusing too and as such you have no idea WHY anyone is in the situation you in which compounds the lack of character development.
Also, the significant formatting errors on Kindle made it extremely difficult to read at times and perhaps this impacted upon my enjoyment of the novel.

As always I’m extremely grateful to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for the opportunity to read this novel. I hope others will enjoy it, it’s just not for me I’m afraid.