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A review by popcorndiva
Watch Us Rise by Ellen Hagan, Renée Watson
3.0
3 Stars
I got this book on a whim at my local library. I was browsing the Teen shelves for a few specific books and none of them were available. I happened to notice this one featured on a shelf and after reading the back cover I was intrigued. Two young girls taking on the system in the name of intersectional feminism? Yes, please. Unfortunately, only about half this book lived up to my expectations.
Watch Us Rise is a young adult novel that follows Chelsea and Jasmine through their junior year of high school. At the start of the year, both girls are facing their own personal struggles at home, relationship problems, and they are finding themselves alienated more and more in their after school clubs. Jasmine finds herself the victim of both overt and subtle racism in her theatre group; meanwhile, Chelsea is sick of her poetry club focusing exclusively on older poetry written primarily by white men. The two girls break away and start their own club, aimed at giving ALL women a voice.
This is not a plot driven story. The narrative is very straightforward, with no surprises. I did appreciate the uniqueness of this story. I have never read a book with this concept and I do think the plot was well executed. What really fell short for me was the characters. Well, actually, just one character in particular: Chelsea.
Chelsea, in my opinion, is a non-example of feminism. She does not take into account the complexities of being a woman, such as her BEST FRIEND JASMINE! not being a size 00. It never occurs to her that her friend isn’t buying clothes when they go shopping together because she literally cannot find her size in all the stores Chelsea goes to. And, even when Jasmine confronted her about this issue she never really apologized. It was more like Jasmine forgave her because she didn’t want to have conflict with her best friend, not because she really believed Chelsea had given the issue any thought. I was just so annoyed at this aspect of the story that it kind of ruined it for me. I would have LOVED to seen Chelsea truly engage in self-reflection and realize how much of the feminist picture she was missing and then make real changes in her actions. Instead, she learned nothing and whined about crap the entire book. There were also several times she made comments about how women shouldn’t cook for their husbands and even looked down on woman who do. To me, she’s a perfect example of white feminism, not intersectional feminism.
Jasmine, on the other hand, was a wonderful character. I loved her storyline, her romantic and family relationships, and seeing her fight for what she believed in. I was so proud to see her stand up for herself and begin to love and appreciate herself for all the glorious things she is. Honestly, this whole book would have been a 4 or 4.5 star read if not for Chelsea’s character and storyline. Jasmine was just a much more likable and real main character than Chelsea.
I do think more areas of intersectional feminism could have been addressed- women with disabilities, trans women, and sexual orientation just to name a few. I think with a different character to balance with Jasmine, more of these issues could be explored. As much as I loved Jasmine, it would have also been nice to see other aspects of womanhood acknowledged in the book.
Overall, this might be a good introduction for a young reader who has never read anything about feminism before. However, it was not a perfect example nor was it an all-encompassing view of feminism in general. As an adult, the missing aspects were glaringly obvious and really took me away from the story. However, as a teen, I could have seen myself loving this book- just to see that women authors are writing fiction like this would have been uplifting. Still, it was nothing revolutionary or life changing. It was just okay. I’d recommend this book maybe to young readers in 8th / 9th grade, but I would be sure to also recommend better, more inclusive examples of feminist fiction for them as well.
I got this book on a whim at my local library. I was browsing the Teen shelves for a few specific books and none of them were available. I happened to notice this one featured on a shelf and after reading the back cover I was intrigued. Two young girls taking on the system in the name of intersectional feminism? Yes, please. Unfortunately, only about half this book lived up to my expectations.
Watch Us Rise is a young adult novel that follows Chelsea and Jasmine through their junior year of high school. At the start of the year, both girls are facing their own personal struggles at home, relationship problems, and they are finding themselves alienated more and more in their after school clubs. Jasmine finds herself the victim of both overt and subtle racism in her theatre group; meanwhile, Chelsea is sick of her poetry club focusing exclusively on older poetry written primarily by white men. The two girls break away and start their own club, aimed at giving ALL women a voice.
This is not a plot driven story. The narrative is very straightforward, with no surprises. I did appreciate the uniqueness of this story. I have never read a book with this concept and I do think the plot was well executed. What really fell short for me was the characters. Well, actually, just one character in particular: Chelsea.
Chelsea, in my opinion, is a non-example of feminism. She does not take into account the complexities of being a woman, such as her BEST FRIEND JASMINE! not being a size 00. It never occurs to her that her friend isn’t buying clothes when they go shopping together because she literally cannot find her size in all the stores Chelsea goes to. And, even when Jasmine confronted her about this issue she never really apologized. It was more like Jasmine forgave her because she didn’t want to have conflict with her best friend, not because she really believed Chelsea had given the issue any thought. I was just so annoyed at this aspect of the story that it kind of ruined it for me. I would have LOVED to seen Chelsea truly engage in self-reflection and realize how much of the feminist picture she was missing and then make real changes in her actions. Instead, she learned nothing and whined about crap the entire book. There were also several times she made comments about how women shouldn’t cook for their husbands and even looked down on woman who do. To me, she’s a perfect example of white feminism, not intersectional feminism.
Jasmine, on the other hand, was a wonderful character. I loved her storyline, her romantic and family relationships, and seeing her fight for what she believed in. I was so proud to see her stand up for herself and begin to love and appreciate herself for all the glorious things she is. Honestly, this whole book would have been a 4 or 4.5 star read if not for Chelsea’s character and storyline. Jasmine was just a much more likable and real main character than Chelsea.
I do think more areas of intersectional feminism could have been addressed- women with disabilities, trans women, and sexual orientation just to name a few. I think with a different character to balance with Jasmine, more of these issues could be explored. As much as I loved Jasmine, it would have also been nice to see other aspects of womanhood acknowledged in the book.
Overall, this might be a good introduction for a young reader who has never read anything about feminism before. However, it was not a perfect example nor was it an all-encompassing view of feminism in general. As an adult, the missing aspects were glaringly obvious and really took me away from the story. However, as a teen, I could have seen myself loving this book- just to see that women authors are writing fiction like this would have been uplifting. Still, it was nothing revolutionary or life changing. It was just okay. I’d recommend this book maybe to young readers in 8th / 9th grade, but I would be sure to also recommend better, more inclusive examples of feminist fiction for them as well.