When an unlikely teenager stands up to sexism in her high school she unwittingly starts a feminist revolution that shakes her whole town. It's time to fight like a girl! Perfect for fans of Holly Bourne.
Vivian Carter is fed up. Fed up with her high school teachers who think the football team can do no wrong. Fed up with sexist dress codes, hallway harassment and gross comments from guys during class. But most of all, Viv Carter is fed up with always following the rules.
Viv's mum was a tough-as-nails, punk rock Riot Grrrl in the '90s, and now Viv takes a page from her mother's past and creates Moxie, a feminist zine that she distributes anonymously to her classmates. She's just blowing off steam, but other girls respond and spread the Moxie message. As Viv forges friendships with other young women across the divides of cliques and popularity rankings, she realises that what she has started is nothing short of a girl revolution.
Review: This book made me so so mad but I loved it so much! When an author can evoke that much intense emption in me you know it is going to be a good read. I will not lie, this book has been on my kindle for far too long and it was the release of the Netflix adaptation that gave me the push to finally read this young adult book that had been recommended to me by so many people.
Vivian is a great protagonist for this book because she is just so normal. She even mentions herself that people don't notice someone like her, that she doesn't go to parties, she just keeps her head down and gets on with things. Her mom was the rebel and when her grandparents begin to tell her about her mom's past it ignites something in Vivian and that is when her moxie truly appears. I love that we get to see such growth from this character, its not like she has to get a love interest or a makeover for this to happen, she changes because she begins to fight back and really start to smash that patriarchy.
This book definitely comes with some care warnings for sexual assault and rape. There is nothing explicit on the page but it is covered and so take that into consideration when picking this one up. This book will also make you really really mad. I had the added layer of being mad about everything that is going unchecked and the gender imbalance in Vivian's school because I am a teacher and it incensed me that the school was upholding their duty of caee towards the male students and not the female students. There as no kind of equality in that school and the attitude of the staff was only fostering the attitude of some of the male students, attitudes that they would carry with them into the outside world.
This book has a great cast of characters, obviously there are plenty that you will love to hate and really want to see the back of but Vivian's group of friends, that grows over the course of the book is a great mix of characters. They all have moxie and I love the way they support each other and lift each other up, male and female alike. I really loved what this book had to say and I can't wait to see how it is portrayed on the big screen!
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