I loved presenting this book at NCTE and am grateful to have read it here first. It was a book group option for my young adult literature class, and ten preservice teachers chose to read it. I apologize that I didn't tell you this sooner!

Purchased this YA/middle grade novel for my middle school library. Superb character development, elegant world building, and compelling plotting. I am a fan of Renee Watson's stories.

I wish a high school like this actually existed. We need to promote social justice as a legitimate stance instead of denigrating it as just for the bleeding hearts. The two main characters in this novel are excellent role models for how to navigate friendship. They speak openly with each other about things that they see that are problematic for the other one. They talk about their feelings and how the other's actions affect them.

Our two main characters are students at a social justice high school but they find they are being sidelined from required extra curricular activities because their points about sexism are labeled "trouble-making" and "problems". They form a new extra curricular group and the school has issues with their work in that group. The girls find a way to make their views known to the community at large.

It's a great book about friendship, persistence, and right vs. wrong.

I loved this story of teen activists in New York! Their friendship feels so real, as do their struggles. This is a great one to make activists feel supported and seen, and might just also help some other readers understand "what's the big deal" about stuff like offensive Halloween costumes or racist micro-aggressions from teachers. Very timely and fresh, with such strong character voices.

Jasmine and Chelsea go to an unorthodox high school where everyone has to be in an extracurricular club. When they both become unsatisfied with their clubs, they decide to found one of their own, one that is focused on women's rights. As they make their voices heard, they run up against all types of opposition, from subtle microaggressions to jokes at their expense, unwanted touching, and a school administration that, while teaching them in class how to be activists, really doesn't want to rock the boat. I thought the authors were quite effective in covering all of those bases, while also making Jasmine and Chelsea real characters with other important things going on in their lives. Jasmine's father is dying from cancer and Chelsea is falling for a boy at school. I also really appreciated Jasmine's storylines revolving around her weight. As a big girl, I don't think society really understand the emotional components of living life in a larger body. review from e-galley.

This book was a very interesting contemporary. The "girl power" elements will be fun to share with my female students. I loved the idea of the school in this book and how involved all the students are in social activism. I think this book sets a great model for students today and shows that they can promote what they love and believe in at any age! I also liked the duel narrator set up, but definitely preferred one narrator over the other as the book progressed. Overall, I think this will make a nice addition to our high school library.

Fabulous girl power read! This book should be the teen feminist manifesto. Two very strong voices make for two powerful protagonists with messages that are important and well-delivered. The friendships, families, and school setting lays the foundation for a solid story and the layers of poetry adds extra depth to the personalities. I appreciated that the path was not easy for the girls and the challenges they faced seemed real.

The story of Jasmine and Chelsea's junior year is told with a focus on their growing feminist activism, sometimes overwhelming plot and character development. Jasmine's grief over her father's death (an inevitable event from the start of the book) seems to melt away too quickly as the girls work to bring about societal change. What saves the book is how well Watson and Hagan write. The alternating viewpoints and the inclusion of the characters' poems will draw in teen readers.

I worship at the altar of Renee Watson’s novels and you should too because she’s a fountain of brilliant contemporary kidlit. We’ve all got that author we evangelize to others and Watson is mine. A novel with her name on it co-written with a poet? One that features teenage activism and them fighting the power? YES PLEASE.

Readers get a dual POV novel narrated by Jasmine, a fat Black girl, and Chelsea, a white girl who presumably wears straight sizes but at the very least is nowhere near Jasmine’s size. I bring their body sizes up because it’s relevant; Jasmine and Chelsea have been best friends for years and are together in their management of the Write Like a Girl blog, but Chelsea fails to really see Jasmine sometimes. When the two go check out a new clothing store, Chelsea finds a bunch of clothing whilst Jasmine sees only two racks of plus-size clothes and is told most of the larger sizes are only online. Then when Chelsea orders shirts to support Write Like a Girl, she doesn’t order a shirt big enough to fit Jasmine comfortably.

The point: even in progressive spaces and when among friends who are allies in the fight for human rights, bigotry is still present. Being left-wing or liberal doesn’t automatically make a person or a space anti-bigotry. That’s something people have to actively work for! People who call themselves liberals can be just as hideously racist as Donald Trump, for instance. This is something Jasmine knows all too well thanks to Chelsea’s size-blindness and that Chelsea comes to learn as well when their “progressive” high school’s administration objects to Write Like a Girl’s posts and shuts the whole thing down when some classmates use a school dance as an opportunity to make fun of Jasmine’s and Chelsea’s ideas.

When you’re protesting an issue and your so-called allies do exactly the thing you’re protesting against, it can make fighting for what’s right all the more draining. But these girls don’t quit when it gets tough. Jasmine eventually calls Chelsea out, the two of them work together to fight back against their school’s censorship, and their club is so empowering even when it’s fictional and only on the page. It makes you dream of fighting back against the same pressures in your life. If you’re not a teen or no longer in school while reading this, it might make you reflect on your time in school like it made me do.

Just don’t take anyone or anything at its word when it calls itself progressive. That’s what the girls’ high school markets itself as, but I wouldn’t say the place is progressive to any degree when Chelsea tells the principal directly that she was sexually harassed by the student body president earlier the same day and Principal Hayes responds by doing NOTHING. He really, truly deserved a kick to the reproductives.

Sadly, his response is quite realistic. When three boys sexually harassed me on the school bus for weeks in junior high, their punishment was merely being assigned seats at the front of the bus. Students harassed me during school? Absolutely nothing. Heck, my ninth grade gym class was one big Title IX violation and I had no idea! Had I been aware of Title IX at the time and tried to report it to the administration, I highly doubt anything would have changed. This was only ten years ago. Call me a cynic, but I doubt the schools I went to are doing any better now in those regards.

ANYWAY. One element of Watch Us Rise that didn’t work for me was its timeline, being that the entire novel takes place over the course of a single school year. The events feel artificially stretched out at times and it left me with an odd feeling I was missing events in their lives. Though I read the book in almost a single sitting, that choice messed with the pacing and messed with my sense of time.

If Watson and Hagan collaborate on another YA novel in the future, I’ll read it. If Hagan publishes a solo YA novel, I’ll definitely check it out. I’ve still got it on my list to check out some of her poetry after seeing what she came up with in Watch Us Rise! Teens will learn a great deal about activism while enjoying a well-written story with a diverse, unique cast of characters.

I really enjoyed this novel. I would highly recommend that adolescents read this or parents of young girls read it with them. I found it relatable, necessary, and powerful. I really enjoyed the feminist resources shared at the end of the novel.

I didn't end up finishing this book in time, but what I read I loved. I think it's great for teens to find role models of community activism in their reading. I'm a huge Renee Watson fan and I ordered this book for our collection and I'm sure will recommend.

3.5 stars - Originally I was going to give this the full four stars but upon reflection I think it's more of a 3.5 star

First I want to say that I did enjoy this book. I really liked reading about the characters and their daily lives. I thought our two main characters were fleshed out decently, but I liked Jasmine more than Chelsea. Jasmine just had more going on and I just found it nicer to be in her head. I liked the side characters as well, but I didn't feel like we got to know them as well as we could have. I also wasn't a huge fan of one of the love interests (although I'm not sure I was supposed to be). I thought the writing was rather plain, which just made it all the more readable in my opinion. I did enjoy the poetry that was included as "blog posts" for the most part but I did feel like it became a little over used as a writing device at some parts.

My biggest problem was unfortunately also the biggest reason l was drawn to the book. The descriptions of different feminist ideas just felt so overt and heavy handed. The girls started a blog for their club that ends up reading almost exactly like my tumblr from when I was 16 and just getting into feminism and taking things up to 11. I really wanted more nuance from the discussions that the girls were having and I just didn't get it. When topics that the girls either didn't agree with or didn't understand were brought up I felt like those were just steamrolled over with little discussion or even acknowledgement.

Also this is just a logistical problem, but the girls getting in trouble for selling shirts for their club because they hadn't asked for the principal's permission didn't make sense. If anyone was to blame it was their adviser for that. Wouldn't it have made sense for their adviser to ask some questions when they showed up in her classroom with these shirts?

I want to say that I know I would have absolutely LOVED this as a teen, so I would recommend this for teens who are getting into feminism and are feeling hopeless, because I do think the book does inspire some hope. But I'd only want them to read this if it can be followed up with some more nuanced discussions and why not everything the girls did was correct.

If you ever wondered what, if anything, you could do to change things read Watch Us Rise. Best friends Jasmine and Chelsea decide to highlight the treatment of women and minorities at their school and shake things up. While not everything goes according to plan, they start a club Write Like a Girl dedicated to support the artistic expression of women and focus on feminist issues. Its blog attracts a following and they make definitely make an impact at their school and in their community.

I loved this book. I was so taken with the main characters and their ability to be simultaneously wise beyond their years and insistently teenagers all at once, and I love how real their voices felt. I loved the variety of feminist issues the book takes up, from body positivity/fat acceptance to intersectionality to sexual harassment to youth rights and adultism. I teach classes that are nearly even split between white college students and students of color, many of whom are from New York City, and I really think that the alternating voices format, and the way the book allows the reader to experience the book's world from multiple perspectives, will resonate well with my students. I can't wait to recommend it to them, and am strongly considering adopting this book for my Sociology of Gender course in the fall.

WATCH US RISE by Renee Watson and Ellen Hagan is a YA novel about two friends, Chelsea (a poet) and Jasmine (who loves to write and act). I was really looking forward to this book because of how much I had enjoyed Watson's Piecing Me Together. Sadly, this collaboration did not have the same impact for me. These two characters are frustrated with the situation at their school (largely driven by unrealistic and uncaring adult figures). Together, Chelsea and Jasmine strive to make an impact with a new blog as they also cope with a diagnosis of terminal cancer for Jasmine's father. I found the text to be rather "preach-y" and think that Publishers Weekly summarized it best: "strong messaging can sometimes bog down the book's pace." Note, however, that School Library Journal gave WATCH US RISE a starred review and it has received positive reader reviews at GoodReads so it may appeal to budding feminists, especially students in late middle and early high school.

I really enjoyed the depiction portrayed in this book. It read a little young, but that was clearly the intent. I love Renee Watson and have become a good fan of Ellen Hagan. I need publishers to take note, we need more books like this being written. I'm so glad I got an ARC of this and get the chance to tell people to read it.

When I saw this book, I knew I had to get my hands on it! Thank you @netgalley and @bloomsbury for the opportunity to review this for an honest review. #blessed

The narrative is shared by Chelsea and Jasmine, two “womyn” at a almost utopian sounding social justice focused high school. All students’ clubs are social justice focused, from math, “justice in numbers” to science, where they learn about food deserts in their own neighborhoods and read medical ethics books on Henrietta Lacks.

The school feels like a progressive student’s dream, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement, as an incident in poetry club leads Chelsea and Jasmine to start a women’s rights club. By starting a blog, they struggle to make things right within an already seemingly progressive space.

I wish this book had existed when I was a teen. I found it to be a good resource for womyn and girls who want to make changes within their spaces. If anything it would help these students feel less alone. The poetry and blog entries are beautiful and inspiring. There are also two other characters who are part of the friend group, an artist, Isaac and Dj, Nadine. Isaac feels fairly developed while I wished Nadine had contributed a bit more besides playlists, but to be fair, this novel was most successful when it was focusing on the students’ original goals.

This novel is ambitious at times, and starts to throw everything on the table at times, to show the appropriate way to handle all types of oppression/harassment, but I also feel that it was intended to show how-to, and therefore wanted to cover as much ground as possible.

Overall, I enjoyed the characters and the realities that they faced. I liked that they were progressives pushing against complacency and false activism/intentions. I would love to have this book in my classroom for students who sometimes feel that their struggles aren’t worthwhile, because it highlights the power and determination of one voice. 4/5 ⭐️

I am sooo excited to be talking about Watch Us Rise finally! I loved reading this book soo much like I can not even describe how much. I knew a little about what the book was about going into it but once I started this book I could not stop, I was hooked.

SPOILERS AHEAD

This book centers around two main characters with a cast of side characters that include their two other best friends, kids at their school, teachers, the principal, their families, and the boys they like. Jasmine and Chelsea are best friends living in NYC attending a high school that is supposed to be progressive. Each student at the school is required to be a part of an after-school club however, the girls decide its time to step away from their clubs and make their own. One about women’s rights and one where they can speak their minds about issues at the school and in the community. However, the clubs required blog soon begins to cause a stir at the school and the principal threatens to shut the girls and their club down. Meanwhile, the girls each have their own crush and boy drama going on and Jasmine has some big changes coming at home that not only affect her but will affect her whole social group.

As things progress someone reads one of the girl’s blog posts at an open mic and the video goes online. From here things only get bigger, and the girls have to make some really tough choices about what exactly they are fighting for and what they plan to demand.

I really love this book and I plan to get a finished copy at some point. I am really shocked I liked this book because if I am honest I have not read a lot in this type of genre and I felt like it was not my thing. I think this book was a five star read for me for several reasons, for example, I loved the plot of Jasmine’s family (despite how heartbreaking it truly was) and the each of the subplots were just as interesting to read as the main plot. I definitely recommend picking this up even if you do not think this is the book for you, grab it from a library and give it a try.

Watch Us Rise is a feminist manifesto for today’s young adults. It’s the story of Jasmine and Chelsea, two high school juniors in New York City who are fed up with the micro-aggressions in their school and decide to combat them by establishing a Women’s Rights Club. Amsterdam Heights High School claims to espouse and model social justice and equity, but when reactions to their Write Like a Girl blog “incite discord,” the club is disbanded. Rather than accept the Principal’s decision, the young “womyn” take their peaceful protests to the neighborhood and the local newspaper. Will their persistence pay off?

This story is a testament to the power of positive modeling. Both Jasmine and Chelsea’s parents are liberal and civic-minded and have taught and encouraged their daughters to use their art as activism. In fact, Jasmine’s father, who is dying of cancer, challenges Jasmine, Chelsea and their friends Isaac and Nadine (whom he calls artivists) to “Go out and find some inspiration. Create some art in response to what you see.” Their poems, writings, songs, and drawings, combined with the narrative alternating between Jasmine and Chelsea, create an intersectional kaleidoscope of their reactions to the racism, fat-shaming, misogyny, discrimination and sexism they face daily.

This book is groundbreaking and a much-needed portrayal of the struggles today’s young women continue to face. It sends a powerful message that words and actions can have positive impact and that change can begin with a single action. This is an essential purchase for any library serving teens and should be required reading as a springboard for open, honest dialogue.



I received a complimentary copy of this book from Bloomsbury through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

WATCH US RISE is the intersectional feminist YA contemporary book every girl is (probably) looking for -- I know that I could have definitely used it when I was in middle/high school. This book goes back and forth between the two main characters, Jasmine and Chelsea, who are looking to make the most of their time and their art by starting a Women's Rights Club (all school's need this, tbh).

One of my favorite things about this book is that the person that pushes Jasmine and her friends to embrace their cultures/races/gender and use their art skills to enhance their activism is Jasmine's father (who we immediately find out is dying of stage 4 cancer).

I also love what they named their Women's Rights Club -- Write Like a Girl. Also, I don't know if this counts as a spoiler, but I 100% love the way Ms. Lucas calls out the girls and tells them they have more to learn about women's rights after they criticize her for having to go home and cook dinner. Older feminist women gently mentor the girls, making sure they check their privilege and the way their activism can ostracize people and actually hurt their movement rather than help it.

Part of feminism is about introspection and realizing and coming to terms with your own biases. These biases can be in regards to race, but often it is about the way women are pitted against each other: moms vs. women without children; working women vs. homemakers; high level career women vs. blue collar women; married women vs. single women; "attractive" women vs. "unattractive women". The list goes on and on, but I appreciate the fact that WATCH US RISE doesn't ignore this issue.

In regards to the writing style: there's not a whole lot of negative things I can say about the style of the book itself. I do like that it includes the personal writings of the characters (such as poems) and that the characters themselves represents intersectional feminism in that one character is a black girl and the other is a white girl. I thought there would be an issue with two authors (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't) but in this case, the chapters flow together and it doesn't feel choppy.

However, I personally felt that it needed more of a balance between the dialogue and description (it was weighted more towards dialogue), but that's a personal preference of mine and it certainly wasn't tilted enough to make it unreadable in any way. There are some blocky paragraphs that I would have personally split up, but keeping in mind that I'm reading the ARC of PDF, it could be a formatting issue.

Books like WATCH US RISE deserve to be lifted up and supported. Reading fiction is about having a "lived through" experience -- oftentimes the lessons we learn in books stick with us longer and more fully than the lessons we learn in classes. It's important to have books like this written in the genres of YA/MG; when teenagers have a lived through experience about intersectional feminism through the eyes of kids their own age, it's an experience that they can feel truly immersed and represented in. It can even be a form of catharsis and inspiration for readers who go through similar situations that are mirrored in the book.

If you're Konmari-ing your library, this is a book to add and keep, especially if you're an adult looking for books for teenagers. I'm definitely putting this on my To-Buy list to add to my extensive library!