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A review by papertraildiary
Watch Us Rise by Ellen Hagan, Renée Watson
3.0
This review was originally posted on The Paper Trail Diary.
I didn’t end up reading a lot of girl power type books last year. Most of the new books that seemed to fall in that category included sexual assault, and I just couldn’t handle that in 2018. I don’t want to diss books like that because they are incredibly important. Watch Us Rise doesn’t start with assault but it does deal with the topic at one point, in a different way. This book is all about girls standing up for themselves, making noise, and not stepping down when faced with being silenced.
Jasmine and Chelsea are angry. Angry at everything. Jasmine’s father is dying of cancer, she can’t stand shopping and the limitations for a fat girl, and she’s being racially pigeon-holed into upsetting roles in her theatre group. Chelsea rages against media’s role in the concept of beauty and how it affects girls, how her poetry club doesn’t seem to take modern poetry seriously, and sexist expectations on the women around her.
Both Jasmine and Chelsea are writers – Jasmine tends to write more free form prose, and Chelsea writes poetry (the author who wrote this character is a poet, so the poetry is actually really good!), but sometimes I got confused on which character I was reading because they could sound quite similar. The girls end up dramatically quitting their clubs at school, and decide to start a new club for feminists with a blog, called Write Like a Girl.
Then for a good chunk of the book the girls are put in a series of situations you know will piss them off, from a gross encounter on the subway to a shopping trip to a family dinner, so in that sense it got a little predictable, but I don’t think it was terrible. Unfortunately these situations are real. It just felt kind of crammed together. Each situation prompts a new post on the blog and then they go viral. But for being at a social justice focused high school (those exist now?), their male principal is considerably far behind, and threatens to cancel the club when he thinks the girls have stepped too far over some invisible boundary. I can understand a school not wanting to be responsible for the actions of some kids rioting against universal issues, but you’d think for a social justice school they’d stand behind their students. A-nope. (Well the teachers do. Yeah teachers!)
It was awesome to see the impact the girls made on their loved ones, classmates, and neighbours. It was also kind of great to see them put in their place sometimes. There’s a moment when Chelsea remarks to her teacher that it’s sexist she needs to go home and make dinner for a man, to which the teacher replies that she actually likes cooking and is in fact married to a woman. Context! This shows that it’s good to be angry but it’s also good to look at things from multiple angles. The times we live in are complicated.
I really felt for Jasmine, and had a bit of a hard time feeling for Chelsea but I think that was kind of intended. Jasmine is precious and hurting, while Chelsea is loud and excitable. But they work together well, and they even teach each other lessons, which I think was one of the best things to show in the book.
I think the authors did a really good job with this idea, and it’ll be an awesome read for teens. I wish I had something like this when I was a teenager. I think if it had a bit more tightening up (it was a lot longer than it could’ve been), it would be stronger, but there is so much strength in there it’s like a month’s worth of protein. Get em, girls!!
I didn’t end up reading a lot of girl power type books last year. Most of the new books that seemed to fall in that category included sexual assault, and I just couldn’t handle that in 2018. I don’t want to diss books like that because they are incredibly important. Watch Us Rise doesn’t start with assault but it does deal with the topic at one point, in a different way. This book is all about girls standing up for themselves, making noise, and not stepping down when faced with being silenced.
Jasmine and Chelsea are angry. Angry at everything. Jasmine’s father is dying of cancer, she can’t stand shopping and the limitations for a fat girl, and she’s being racially pigeon-holed into upsetting roles in her theatre group. Chelsea rages against media’s role in the concept of beauty and how it affects girls, how her poetry club doesn’t seem to take modern poetry seriously, and sexist expectations on the women around her.
Both Jasmine and Chelsea are writers – Jasmine tends to write more free form prose, and Chelsea writes poetry (the author who wrote this character is a poet, so the poetry is actually really good!), but sometimes I got confused on which character I was reading because they could sound quite similar. The girls end up dramatically quitting their clubs at school, and decide to start a new club for feminists with a blog, called Write Like a Girl.
Then for a good chunk of the book the girls are put in a series of situations you know will piss them off, from a gross encounter on the subway to a shopping trip to a family dinner, so in that sense it got a little predictable, but I don’t think it was terrible. Unfortunately these situations are real. It just felt kind of crammed together. Each situation prompts a new post on the blog and then they go viral. But for being at a social justice focused high school (those exist now?), their male principal is considerably far behind, and threatens to cancel the club when he thinks the girls have stepped too far over some invisible boundary. I can understand a school not wanting to be responsible for the actions of some kids rioting against universal issues, but you’d think for a social justice school they’d stand behind their students. A-nope. (Well the teachers do. Yeah teachers!)
It was awesome to see the impact the girls made on their loved ones, classmates, and neighbours. It was also kind of great to see them put in their place sometimes. There’s a moment when Chelsea remarks to her teacher that it’s sexist she needs to go home and make dinner for a man, to which the teacher replies that she actually likes cooking and is in fact married to a woman. Context! This shows that it’s good to be angry but it’s also good to look at things from multiple angles. The times we live in are complicated.
I really felt for Jasmine, and had a bit of a hard time feeling for Chelsea but I think that was kind of intended. Jasmine is precious and hurting, while Chelsea is loud and excitable. But they work together well, and they even teach each other lessons, which I think was one of the best things to show in the book.
I think the authors did a really good job with this idea, and it’ll be an awesome read for teens. I wish I had something like this when I was a teenager. I think if it had a bit more tightening up (it was a lot longer than it could’ve been), it would be stronger, but there is so much strength in there it’s like a month’s worth of protein. Get em, girls!!