Title: Moxie
Author: Jennifer Mathieu
Genre: Young Adult
Published On: September 19, 2017
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Source: digital
Pages: 335
Synopsis:
MOXIE GIRLS FIGHT BACK!
Vivian Carter is fed up. Fed up with an administration at her high school that thinks 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 mom 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 a feminist zine that she distributes anonymously to her classmates. She’s just blowing off steam, but other girls respond. As Viv forges friendships with other young women across the divides of cliques and popularity rankings, she realizes that what she has started is nothing short of a girl revolution.
Moxie is a book about high school life that will make you wanna riot!
My thoughts
(Spoiler free)
I grew up in a small Texas town where football was the main attraction, so Moxie has been on my tbr for a long time. The release of the Netflix adaptation (directed by and starring Amy Poehler!) finally pushed me to pick it up. Reading the book definitely brought back some memories of my own high school experiences as a teen in the early ’90s, as well.
But mostly reading Moxie just made me mad. In a good way.
“Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live in a town that doesn’t revolve around seventeen-year-old boys who get laid way too often just because they know how to throw a football.”
Moxie, Jennifer Mathieu
This well-written young adult novel does many things right: friendships, first love, and familial relationships. I loved Viv and her best friend Claudia’s relationship, as well as, Viv’s new friendship with Lucy. I appreciated that the author gave us a male/female relationship that was positive but still not perfect, in a book about feminism. And it was refreshing to see a parent that wasn’t a typical book parent.
There were a few things that I wish had been handled differently—things the film did much better—like teachers that weren’t completely useless. It was hard to imagine while I was reading that there were NO adults in the school that actually cared about their students.
The author got the sexist treatment of female students by male students spot-on. I look back flabbergasted at how we females just accepted that our bras would be snapped, our butts would be grabbed, or our breasts would be “accidentally” brushed. I want to go back and start my own rebellion.
And the unbalanced dress code… I actually did at least speak out about that when I was in school. I wrote an editorial as co-editor of our high school newspaper about how unfair the dress code was after I was taken to the principal’s office for having shorts that were a fourth of a inch too short while the cheerleaders were allowed to wear their much shorter skirts or “athletic” shorts. BUT they were acceptable because they were considered a “uniform.” Give me a break.
Maybe I still have some unresolved feelings about that. 😉
Moxie reminded me that things are better but we still have a long way to go—and that (thankfully) I’ve raised two daughters who stand up against the kind of treatment I just accepted as normal.
“…it occurs to me that this is what it means to be a feminist. Not a humanist or an equalist or whatever. But a feminist. It’s not a bad word. Because really all it is is girls supporting each other and wanting to be treated like human beings in a world that’s always finding ways to tell them they’re not.”
Moxie, Jennifer Mathieu
MOXIE GIRLS FIGHT BACK!!
Rating:
About the Author
A Song For A Book
Viv is inspired in the book and film by her mother’s involvement in Riot Girrrl, the underground feminist punk movement of the ’90s, and especially her love of the band Bikini Kill. While the book mentions several songs and artists and the film uses a few of those as well as featuring more current music, it seems only appropriate for me to highlight the song that inspires Viv to lead a rebellion, “Rebel Girl” originally by Bikini Kill. But below I’ll share a performance video for the film premiere by The Linda Lindas where they cover “Rebel Girl” and another song they performed in the film, which was pretty cool!
Love you like a sister always
Soul sister, rebel girl
Come and be my best friend
Will you, rebel girl?
I really like you
I really wanna be your best friend
Be my rebel girl
Have you read Moxie? Have you watched the adaptation yet? Let know in the comments!
Happy Wandering!
Since the release of the movie, I’ve been wanting to pick this one up. I definitely plan to get to the movie soon, I’m just not sure when I will pick the book up (so many books, so little time). Your review has moved it up on my list!
I feel ya! Sometimes I feel like the adaptations are breathing down my neck. Haha!