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Are You Still Watching? - an atmospheric dystopian YA thriller about reality TV and social media for fans of Black Mirror and Severance
Not yet published
Expected 10 Sep 26The anticipated YA debut from Kelechi Okafor. Perfect for fans
of Black Mirror and Severance.
The year is 2032. Dorcas has her whole life ahead of her - university,
career, escape from her suffocating small town. There's
only one she has no idea who she wants to be. Then something
impossible happens. A being from another world brings a terrifying
her entire life is a reality show broadcast across
the galaxy ... and she's bombing. The audience is bored. Unless
she does something extraordinary - anything - she'll be cancelled.
Permanently. Now Dorcas has one chance to figure out what makes
a life worth living. Before her time runs out.
of Black Mirror and Severance.
The year is 2032. Dorcas has her whole life ahead of her - university,
career, escape from her suffocating small town. There's
only one she has no idea who she wants to be. Then something
impossible happens. A being from another world brings a terrifying
her entire life is a reality show broadcast across
the galaxy ... and she's bombing. The audience is bored. Unless
she does something extraordinary - anything - she'll be cancelled.
Permanently. Now Dorcas has one chance to figure out what makes
a life worth living. Before her time runs out.
Kindle Edition
Expected publication September 10, 2026
About the author
Kelechi Okafor
10 books68 followersI am Kelechi (Ke-leh-chee) Okafor and I'm a lover of words. I act, I direct and I write. I tweet and I dissect bits about society one podcast episode at a time.
When I am not doing all of the above, I teach pole dance and twerk at my studio Kelechnekoff Fitness in Peckham.
Society teaches us that we must fall into categories somehow. All I know is that I'm just a Baby Girl.
Thank you for visiting my page, and I hope you find what you are looking for on this page and in this life (profound, I know).
When I am not doing all of the above, I teach pole dance and twerk at my studio Kelechnekoff Fitness in Peckham.
Society teaches us that we must fall into categories somehow. All I know is that I'm just a Baby Girl.
Thank you for visiting my page, and I hope you find what you are looking for on this page and in this life (profound, I know).
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
I received a review copy from the publisher in preparation for a UKYASpotlight interview. It has not affected my opinions.
1.5 stars
This book felt like several colours slapped onto a canvas with no attempt at blending them together.
It is a book, at least according to the marketing!, about listlessness in life - not being the main character. It is also about (and way more focused on) systematic racism in technology (and how that then translates into justice). To me at least, there are clear ways to link those ideas, make the discussion feel more rounded, but that never happened. It felt like to separate ideas shoved together, rather than enriched by looking at the ways they connect. Not least, how does providing all this information to corporations in order to alleviate boredom and remove friction make us complicit in feeding the algorithms used to perpetuate and feed these systematically flawed institutions?
This disconnect between ideas made the entire premise (girl finds out her life is televised on another planet and will die if she does nothing) feel deeply forgotten at times. It was not the focus - the story line around justice and activism was the focus. Which isn't mentioned at all in any of the marketing copies. Instead, it looks like it'll be a sci fi dystopia about social media and reality TV. It's very much not and I wish that there hadn't been this massive disconnect between the two. It felt like a lot of wasted potential in the set up.
The world build was so jarring. It's 2032 and I'm supposed to believe that there can be a closed off city in the UK where no one remembers the outside world? It took forever to get answers (which were deeply unsatisfying and only made the "this doesn't make sense" feeling worse.) It could have been solved by simply not having a date. Let it be the vague future and I won't be wondering how these adults don't know about the outside world.
Also Dorcas just accepts this person telling her about the TV show and the consequences at face value? She never asks for proof? There's no real sense that this is real (made worse by the fact that literally the scene before they're talking about AI holograms!!) It completely undercut all the tension for me because the stakes were never proven. You had to take it on trust without that trust being earnt (and it made Dorcas look deeply naïve).
There are answers about aliens and TV show - which undercut the entire premise (in a similar way to how the world building reveal was unsatisfactory). It made everything beforehand feel very pointless and Dorcas feel like even more of a foolish character. But oh no, that was all OK because it made her an activist? Also I yelled "that's not how quantum entanglement works" at the explanation. It was so frustratingly a "I barely googled this topic" use of science.
Dorcas' mum watches a lot of reality TV and that becomes a key moment about halfway through, but the show in question is never set up. For all the time spent around reality TV, the all important show is not mentioned once before it bursts into the scene. It made that whole sequence feel like a very obvious "change of pace and addition of stakes at the midpoint" moment, which was so jarring. It didn't feel earnt at all and so a very clumsy "new act" transition.
I have no idea if this is a series or not. The last chapter would appear to be so but the epilogue says maybe not. I don't feel any need to read further (I would not have finished this if it wasn't a UKYASPOTLIGHT book.)
1.5 stars
This book felt like several colours slapped onto a canvas with no attempt at blending them together.
It is a book, at least according to the marketing!, about listlessness in life - not being the main character. It is also about (and way more focused on) systematic racism in technology (and how that then translates into justice). To me at least, there are clear ways to link those ideas, make the discussion feel more rounded, but that never happened. It felt like to separate ideas shoved together, rather than enriched by looking at the ways they connect. Not least, how does providing all this information to corporations in order to alleviate boredom and remove friction make us complicit in feeding the algorithms used to perpetuate and feed these systematically flawed institutions?
This disconnect between ideas made the entire premise (girl finds out her life is televised on another planet and will die if she does nothing) feel deeply forgotten at times. It was not the focus - the story line around justice and activism was the focus. Which isn't mentioned at all in any of the marketing copies. Instead, it looks like it'll be a sci fi dystopia about social media and reality TV. It's very much not and I wish that there hadn't been this massive disconnect between the two. It felt like a lot of wasted potential in the set up.
The world build was so jarring. It's 2032 and I'm supposed to believe that there can be a closed off city in the UK where no one remembers the outside world? It took forever to get answers (which were deeply unsatisfying and only made the "this doesn't make sense" feeling worse.) It could have been solved by simply not having a date. Let it be the vague future and I won't be wondering how these adults don't know about the outside world.
Also Dorcas just accepts this person telling her about the TV show and the consequences at face value? She never asks for proof? There's no real sense that this is real (made worse by the fact that literally the scene before they're talking about AI holograms!!) It completely undercut all the tension for me because the stakes were never proven. You had to take it on trust without that trust being earnt (and it made Dorcas look deeply naïve).
There are answers about aliens and TV show - which undercut the entire premise (in a similar way to how the world building reveal was unsatisfactory). It made everything beforehand feel very pointless and Dorcas feel like even more of a foolish character. But oh no, that was all OK because it made her an activist? Also I yelled "that's not how quantum entanglement works" at the explanation. It was so frustratingly a "I barely googled this topic" use of science.
Dorcas' mum watches a lot of reality TV and that becomes a key moment about halfway through, but the show in question is never set up. For all the time spent around reality TV, the all important show is not mentioned once before it bursts into the scene. It made that whole sequence feel like a very obvious "change of pace and addition of stakes at the midpoint" moment, which was so jarring. It didn't feel earnt at all and so a very clumsy "new act" transition.
I have no idea if this is a series or not. The last chapter would appear to be so but the epilogue says maybe not. I don't feel any need to read further (I would not have finished this if it wasn't a UKYASPOTLIGHT book.)
Displaying 1 of 1 review