An unlikely teenager starts a feminist revolution at a small-town Texan high school…Vivian Carter is fed up. Fed up with a school administration at her small-town Texas 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!
Whatever your take on this, it’s an important book that should be read – by boys and girls – and then discussed. It’s not perfect, but it is realistic…and definitely something that I can see teen readers relating to (sadly).
Seeing the school day through the eyes of the girls it was evident that this particular environment had more than its fair share of problems. The Principal was a somewhat exaggerated creation, solely to fit the purposes of the story, but the sexist slogans on shirts, the silly corridor games and the lack of discussion about these attitudes is quite a common issue. It’s the kind of thing that will never be challenged if we don’t talk about it.
This is one of those books that I think should be read, because even if there’s not an obvious problem it raises questions about our assumptions and beliefs. It will, I think, get readers fired up.