We Are Watching Eliza Bright is somehow systematic and slippery at once. It follows the titular character through a hard-fought promotion as a developer at primarily male-staffed Fancy Dog Games, where she is instantly met with demeaning misogynistic attacks from her coworkers and faced with the struggle of whether to speak up. Will anything change? Will it be worse after? Does she owe it to all the uncelebrated, hardworking women in games to call it out? Unfortunately for Eliza, she chose to find out.

Told from two opposing perspectives, Osworth cloaks the reader in anonymity so we too are watching Eliza Bright. We are not quite her, but not quite them either. We're first submerged in an obsessive, incel troll echo chamber that felt realistic enough to make reading difficult early in the text. We're subject to their pervasive assumptions and outright lies spreading like wildfire to fit their narrative and keep their world under (their) control. We get the small breath of relief of temporary shelter within a queer art commune, doting on Eliza with unquestioning love and community support. We eavesdrop on perspectives from both the antagonist(s) and protagonist(s). We are allowed to choose (though, if you truly see a choice, you've perhaps missed the message here).

Osworth's writing was thoughtful and detailed. I was not surprised to read that they worked on this text for half a decade. The care showed. There was a surprising mix of tender and analytical. Humor and disgust. Cyberspace and meatspace. Ambiguity and clarity. Several of the secondary characters received enough detail and story arcs that they felt fulfilled instead of an untied thread. Most importantly, the story moved along and maintained its suspense while providing enough detail to created a virtual reality not completely unlike that which got Eliza into this situation in the first place. All in all, a very fun and thought-provoking read from a promising voice.

Inspired by #gamergate, this novel takes readers far down the rabbit hole of hatred, misogyny, and white supremacy. And it does this through mostly the haters’ point of view, which is a good way of flipping the script.

In a nutshell, Eliza Bright works for development company Fancy Dog (sounds an awful lot like Naughty Dog, eh?) and is upset by some immature ribbing from two of her male coworkers. When she speaks up, she’s told not to make it into a big deal. Then, when she goes to a journalist with her story, everything quickly blows up. I won’t tell you what happens next, but this novel has a couple of truly shocking events.

When the book isn’t told from the haters’ POV, it switches to the Sixsterhood. This is a group of queer people who live in an artist commune together. They’ve got a much more evolved POV. However, for some reason, they use a lot of run-on sentences and no punctuation. So, that was a bit troublesome to read. Overall, though, they were a group of people that anyone who likes having people around them would feel very supported by.

I really appreciated what Eliza did before the book ended. This definitely raises many moral questions, but it answers them too. Here’s a hint: if you’re on the side of the haters, you’ve chosen the wrong side.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC. This review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.