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.

Jasmine and Chelsea are two teenage girls living in New York City. They are both committed to equality and womens’ rights, but even at their high school, which focuses on social justice, things aren’t always fair. Jasmine is fat-shamed and always cast in the traditional “Black” roles in theatre, and the principal doesn’t care when Chelsea reports an assault on campus. So, the two friends get together to form their own club, Write Like a Girl, to fight for girls’ rights in the way that they want.
Jasmine and Chelsea are both really cool girls. They know what they want and they aren’t afraid to work to get it. Sometimes, their comments can seem a bit annoying and hypocritical (for example, Chelsea criticizes makeup names for being made by the patriarchy, but then uses them herself, or judges other women for falling into “gender stereotypes” such as making dinner) and the book doesn’t include some groups in their campaign (like LGBTQ+ people and disabled people), but you can tell that the girls made a real difference in their school community and in the lives of girls around them in the end. There was some interesting poetry and art included in the book and I liked many of the ways the girls campaigned for feminism. Overall, a great book for the aspiring social justice activist, but it can be exclusive and judgemental in places.

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 started a women's rights club at their high school called Write Like a Girl. The girls kept a club blog, which they used share original poetry and essays on topics related to intersectional feminism. As the readership increased on the girls' blog, other students felt compelled to also take a stand for women's rights issues. The principal accused the girls of "inciting discord" and disbanded Write Like a Girl. But the girls were not going to let their voices be silenced.

The book was a dual narrative with Renée Watson writing Jasmine's perspective and Ellen Hagan writing Chelsea's perspective. I liked Jasmine's narration. On the blog, she wrote about issues she faced as a plus-sized black girl. Chelsea, on the other hand, was the type of feminist that gives the rest of us feminists a bad name. She was judgmental, hypocritical, and wanted to pick a fight about everything. For example, when Ms. Lucas told the girls that she had to go home and cook dinner, Chelsea told her to rage against gender stereotypes. Chelsea's thinking was flawed because it was heterocentric (Ms. Lucas was married to a woman) and assumed that women could not enjoy traditionally feminine tasks.

While I appreciated how the book was intersectional in terms of class and race, I wanted to see more diversity in terms of sexual orientation and gender identity. Ms. Lucas was the queer character (as demonstrated by her one comment about being married to a woman). At the end of the book, the girls state in their list of demands that they want an "inclusive curriculum that honors and includes the voices of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of color) and LGBTQIA + communities." Furthermore, the feminism presented in the book felt very cis-centric. The word "womyn" was used, which has traditionally been used to exclude trans women. The book also made references to menstruation and a woman's ability to give birth, which was again trans-exclusionary. Overall, I am giving this book 3.5 stars.

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.

The Characters

Honestly, the characters were not that memorable. We have Jasmine–who is tired of her theater drama club because of the insensitivity and enforcing of black stereotypes and the Chelsea–who is fed up with her poetry club because of its lack of racial and gender representation in the poets they are studying.

We also learn about each of their family struggles, such as Jasmine’s dad battling cancer and Chelsea dealing with her family’s lack of “wokeness” and standing up for themselves. These parts of the book were interesting but it didn’t make me that invested in the story. We also have some side characters who I, unfortunately, do not for the life of me remember their names but I just didn’t care too much for them either.

The Narrative

This was definitely a “teaching” and “artsy” book. This isn’t a bad thing and the book had more substance because of it. We got to read all the blog post and poems Jasmine and Chealse posted on their feminist blog. One aspect that I thought was a bit much was that we also got to read the comments and reblogs which I thought was a bit tiresome to read. It could be because of my ebook copy but I glossed through those parts. There was also artwork throughout the book which I appreciated.

I also said this was a teaching book because the audience gets to learn about all of these famous women and their contributions to our society. Again, this book is perfect for young readers because most of them don’ t get to learn about these women in the public school system.

Intersectionality

I did like the discussions of intersectionality because it’s something that is overshadowed in a lot of feminist literature. Yes, feminism deals with “women struggles” but we tend to forget that women of color, LGBTQIA+ women, women with disabilities are often left in the gutter in these discussions.

I think teenagers need to be more aware of intersectionality in feminism because, in my opinion, it’s the type we should be focusing on right now. Jasmine is fat and black so she faces a greater struggle than Chelsea, who is white and skinny. Although Chelsea is a progressive feminist, she isn’t aware of the body positivity or fat acceptance culture and so when she’s ordering shirt sizes for their protest, she doesn’t go past a size large.

Last Thoughts

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed this book. It sort of reminds me of Dear White people because of its tackling on microaggressions. However, I think the messages were too in your face rather than subtle which I enjoy more. However, this is a young adult book and sometimes teenagers need these explicit messages and I can understand why the authors made the narrative choice. I personally didn’t learn anything new but I think if your a black teen or a non-white teenager, you might gain something from the book.

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 ⭐️