K.'s Reviews > Dirrayawadha: Rise Up

Content warnings: colonialism, genocide, massacres of Indigenous communities, death of a loved one, incarceration, racism, racial slurs

I absolutely adored Heiss' last book, so when I saw she was writing another historical fiction book set in 19th century Australia with a romance at the heart of it, I was SOLD. And, for the most part, I enjoyed this - as much as one can enjoy the subject matters dealt with in the course of the story.

The characters were painted with care and depth and love, and I really enjoyed the juxtaposition between the Wiradyuri characters and their fight to keep their land free of British control and the Irish convicts seeing their own fight reflected therein.

That being said, this covered a longer period of time than I anticipated and as a result the pacing sometimes felt like it jumped more than I expected it would. And I found the ending extremely abrupt. Perhaps not unexpected, but I turned the page expecting at least one or two more chapters and instead found myself reading an author's note. So. Yeah. I'm really glad I read it and it's a very powerful book. But at the same time, it wasn't what I expected it to be.