Watch Us Rise is a young adult fiction novel about best friends, Jasmine Gray and Chelsea Spencer who are both passionate about feminism and the arts. They attend a specialist social justice school which together with their friends, Isaac and Nadine, they intend to use as a platform to make their voices heard, despite the attempts of teacher and student alike to silence them.

Let's start with the positives: I enjoyed the very post-modern framework of this book in the way it combined prose with artwork, blogs, poetry and other elements. I also thought this book did well to capture the enthusiasm, passion and anger of the feminist movement, especially nowadays with greater emphasis being placed on intersectionality. I could also appreciate the focus of this book towards a younger audience and how important it is for society to change the script of gender role stereotyping for the benefit of future generations.

As to the reason why I rated this book only two stars despite its impactful societal message, simply put, I thought that the story itself was minimal at best and practically non-existent at worst. The plot and the narrative felt extremely skeletal and the dialogue, manufactured in a way that just didn't flow for me.

When I think of the authorial intent behind this book, I don't think the storytelling was its primary focus. I believe the political import of this book was the main driving factor and if such is the case then this book certainly achieved its aim. But if the purpose of this book was to speak about women's rights whilst also delivering a solid storyline then unfortunately this book didn't work for me inasmuch as I fully appreciate what it was trying to do.