We are watching Eliza Bright

Book Cover
Average Rating
Author
Osworth, A. E
Publisher
Grand Central Publishing
Publication Date
©2021.
Language
English
Appears on list
Books You May have Missed 2021: Combined
Book
 Show Edition
Available
Westover - Adult Fiction
F OSWOR
1 available
Place Hold

Description

Named a Best Book of 2021 by NPR • Harper’s Bazaar • CrimeReads • Electric Literature • Autostraddle • The Globe and MailIn this thrilling story of survival and anger, a woman has her whole life turned upside down after speaking out against workplace hostility–and inadvertently becomes the leader of a cultural movement.Eliza Bright is living the dream as an elite video game coder at Fancy Dog Games, the first woman to ascend that high in the ranks—and some people want to make sure she’s the last. To her friends, Eliza Bright is a brilliant, self-taught coder bravely calling out the misogyny that pervades her workplace and industry. To the men who see her very presence as a threat, Eliza Bright is a woman who needs to be destroyed to protect the game they love. When Eliza’s report of workplace harassment is quickly dismissed, she's forced to take her frustrations to a journalist who blasts her story across the internet. She's fired and doxxed, and becomes a rallying figure for women everywhere. But she's also enraged the beast comprised of online male gamers—their unreliable chorus narrates our story. Soon, Eliza is in the cross-hairs of the gaming community, threatened and stalked as they monitor her every move online and across New York City. As the violent power of the angry male collective descends upon everyone in Eliza's life, it becomes increasingly difficult to know who to trust, even when she's eventually taken in and protected by an under-the-radar Collective known as the Sixsterhood. The violence moves from cyberspace to the real world, thanks to a vicious male super-fan known only as The Inspectre, determined to exact his revenge on behalf of men everywhere. We watch alongside the Sixsterhood and subreddit keyboard warriors as this dramatic cat-and-mouse game plays out to its violent and inevitable conclusion in this thrilling story of resilience and survival.  

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Author Notes

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Published Reviews

Publisher's Weekly Review

Self-taught game designer Eliza Bright, the heroine of Osworth's provocative debut, has just been promoted at New York's Fancy Dog Games to develop code that allows sexual activity for the virtual reality upgrade to an online superhero role-playing game. When Eliza's code is tagged "80085" (read: boobs), Eliza brings a complaint to the company president, and then, when she doesn't get satisfaction, shares her treatment with the media, resulting in her dismissal. Her personnel file ends up online, leading to identity theft and having her game avatar gang raped. Eliza flees from real-world taunts and finds refuge with the Sixsterhood, an artistic co-op, and from there seeks out the identity of her principal attacker. Point-of-view shifts between the "weaponized nerd population" that blames Eliza for disrupting their favorite game and the Sixsterhood, whose members are firmly on Eliza's side, build tension. The nerds imagine much of what happens offline, putting a spin on the unreliable narrator trope. Osworth offers a sharp take on the deeply disturbing misogyny that lurks online as well as a hopeful look at combatting it. Agent: Christopher Hermelin, Fischer-Harbage Agency. (Apr.)

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Publishers Weekly Reviews

Self-taught game designer Eliza Bright, the heroine of Osworth's provocative debut, has just been promoted at New York's Fancy Dog Games to develop code that allows sexual activity for the virtual reality upgrade to an online superhero role-playing game. When Eliza's code is tagged "80085" (read: boobs), Eliza brings a complaint to the company president, and then, when she doesn't get satisfaction, shares her treatment with the media, resulting in her dismissal. Her personnel file ends up online, leading to identity theft and having her game avatar gang raped. Eliza flees from real-world taunts and finds refuge with the Sixsterhood, an artistic co-op, and from there seeks out the identity of her principal attacker. Point-of-view shifts between the "weaponized nerd population" that blames Eliza for disrupting their favorite game and the Sixsterhood, whose members are firmly on Eliza's side, build tension. The nerds imagine much of what happens offline, putting a spin on the unreliable narrator trope. Osworth offers a sharp take on the deeply disturbing misogyny that lurks online as well as a hopeful look at combatting it. Agent: Christopher Hermelin, Fischer-Harbage Agency. (Apr.)

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