This book starts of with being just sneakily good, but then wham you're sucked in.

Moxie was a solid-if slightly frustrating-read. It meanders a bit in the middle, and while it has engaging characters, a solid premise, and a heroine worth cheering for, it finished off a little lackluster.

While I would recommend this for any and all teens, as an adult I would direct them elsewhere. Good for those who want to understand the frustration of girls who are just beginning to understand what feminism is about.

This young adult novel is about a teenage girl in a conservative, football-crazy small town in Texas who, inspired by her mother's Riot Grrrl past, starts distributing a zine in the school bathroom speaking up against the sexist stuff going on at school. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and definitely inspirational, this was a fast and entertaining read. Moxie girls fight back!

This is one of those books that every teenage girl will want to read (and every teenage boy probably should read). Vivian has always been the 'dutiful' daughter, preferring to get through high school by keeping her head down and avoiding the notice of both the football players and the school administration that lets them get away with anything. When their behavior becomes too outrageous for her to ignore, however, Viv takes inspiration from her mother's past to start her own feminist movement with an anonymous zine called Moxie. Viv soon discovers that sometimes all it takes is one person making a stand to start a revolution in her school.

Viv is a high school student in Texas who’s fed up with the double standard around her school. Male athletes are fawned over, while regular girls (including female athletes) get ignored. Sexist remarks and t-shirts with crude slogans are tolerated if not laughed off.

Inspired by a box of 90s artifacts she finds in her mom’s room, Viv launches a zine (for those of you too young to remember the 90s, a zine was kind of like a primitive blog. But xeroxed on paper.) In it, she encourages “moxie girls” to fight back against the patriarchy.

First off, it’s so nice to read a pro-feminist YA book, especially in today’s political climate. I went to a school with a strict dress code (shorts had to cover your knees … at which point they were no longer short) and know that girls’ behavior and dress were way more scrutinized than boys’. I think more women need to talk openly about the sexism they encounter.

I also loved the way the book portrayed female friendship. Viv has an old friend who seems uncomfortable with her activism, and a new friend who supports it, and I loved the realistic way the book navigated all that trickiness.

I wished there hadn’t been so much romance in this (I could have done without any, as I didn’t like Seth. At all.) I think his character could have been a friend or her brother to make the same point – that even nice, liberal-leaning guys can be misogynistic.

To me, this book had a quaintness (for lack of a better word) that I really hope will resonate with contemporary teens, as they are the ones who need it. The whole revamped low-tech zine thing kind of made me laugh – I felt like today’s kids might feel they were reading about the American Revolution, with people making political pamphlets on a printing press. I kept wanting Viv to make a tumblr or something.

I think books like this are a much-needed part of contemporary YA. Hope you give it a try!

I absolutely loved this book. It did take me a minute to reset my frame of mind to that of an average high school girl, but after that all bets were off. I’ve loved Mathieu since The Truth About Alice, and Moxie just continues with her successful run of contemporary YA. One of my favorite things about Mathieu is that she’s as raw as it gets with contemporary YA, but she doesn’t stray into the over the top for me (either by making things more tragic or too rose-colored than necessary). In Moxie, she addresses serious issues of sexism and rape, and while a lot of it is resolved, not all of it is. However, you still know that the all the characters are going to be okay going forth even if there wasn’t a complete sweep of justice. This approach always reads as more real to me because unfortunately if Moxie were a true story I think it would perhaps follow a similar resolution. I loved Viv as a character and her jumping between being this hard Riot Grrl and the love-struck teenage girl. I’m genuinely amazed with how Mathieu deftly handled so many of the facets of feminism and showed all the beautiful strengths and weaknesses tied into the issue. Moxie is seriously an incredible look at what it means to be a feminist today and how complicated and messy that can be. I’m seriously ready to go out and start a zine movement just because of this book.

I have heard great things about this book! Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to read it. I will still be recommending it to my patrons!

Moxie kind of made me want to cheer.

Vivian Carter is one of the nice girls, the ones who go to school and do what’s expected of them and never rock the boat. Viv is getting fed up with some of the guys at school, though. In fact, she’s getting angry—angry at the sexist comments made by the jocks on her Texas high school’s beloved football team, angry at games like bump’n’grab (where a guy runs into a girl on purpose and then cops a feel), angry that the administration at her school doesn’t seem to care about any of it. Inspired by zines her mom saved from her days as a riot grrl in the 90s, Viv starts her own underground zine in protest. Viv’s zine finds a receptive audience with some of the other girls at her school, and soon Viv is anonymously leading a movement that she hopes might change things for the better.

Moxie is a quick and easy read. In spite of its serious themes of misogyny and sexism, it’s still often funny. There’s also romance, as Viv finds her first boyfriend in Seth, a cute outsider from Austin.

I’m way outside the demographic this book is targeting (in fact, I could have been a riot grrl if I wasn’t too busy being a nerd back in the day), but I think its central message is great for teenage girls. I was talking with a much younger coworker not long ago, and she criticized feminists as angry women who hate men, which seems to be a fairly common attitude. The novel presents an answer to that view. Yes, Viv is angry at the behavior she sees around her, but it should be OK to be angry about mistreatment and injustice, especially if you can channel that feeling into changing things for the better. And Viv doesn’t hate men—she thinks her boyfriend Seth is pretty fantastic, even if he doesn’t always understand what she’s experiencing or trying to do with her zine. Feminism shouldn’t be a dirty word, and this book makes that pretty clear.

Moxie kind of made me feel like the movie Wonder Woman did—they share the idea that women can stand up and be powerful in support of their beliefs. If you think that’s an idea worth celebrating, give this book a try!

An eARC of this novel was provided by the publisher through NetGalley for review; all opinions expressed are my own.

This was a hard-hitting title that I couldn't put down. MOXIE is a required feminist read.

If I had to be a teenage girl all over again, I'd want to be a Moxie Girl. Vivian didn't plan to be a Moxie Girl, nor did she think she had the power to change the establishment. but she knew there was something very wrong at her high school. All the prestige, all the funding and all the attention was lavished on the male football team. It's members could do no wrong, and when they did, it was ignored, swept under the carpet.

When Viv couldn't accept this attitude any longer, she created a zine with a feminist message and secretly distributed it around the school. She started something that wasn't going away.

As the story progressed, I grew to like Viv more and more. She had found her voice and had a message worth listening to. I did wish that she had told her mom what was happening at school, but there is only so much that teens confide to their parents. With the help of her best friend and several new friends, they presented a message that couldn't be ignored.

Words have power when they reach a receptive audience. I'd like to see this book in the hands of all young women. Classroom discussions on respect and equality regardless of sex, skin colour and race should be ongoing. As a society we lose so much when any one group is suppressed. Go Moxie Grrrls. Yes, I loved this book and the message that it carries.

Moxie is a smart, feministic read. Sports tend to get all the hype in schools, and Vivian's high school is no different except the football team players seem to have full reign on sexually harassing their fellow female classmates without any consequences. Players consistently degrade their female counterparts and even the school administration plays a role in degrading girls based on their clothing.

Read more at the link below.

As a teen reader for the store I work at I found this title to be perfect to recommend. Ty for letting me read advance copy

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Erica – ☆☆☆☆☆
5 Empowered Stars.

Moxie is for every female who has ever heard 'get back in the kitchen' '...is good for a girl' 'smile!' In the year 2017, society shouldn't feel it's acceptable to respond to emotion with 'triggered!' All girls are conditioned to worry about their appearance, placing their worth on whether or not they are pleasing to someone's eye. How many times have you heard, 'treat her as you would your own daughter/sister/mother?' when speaking to a male who doesn't get the concept of respect, as if our worth as women is tied solely to another human being, as if we're 'owned.' How about 'treat her as a human being?'

Moxie is for the girls who are too scared to have a voice, as they witness those who speak up be called derogatory names. 'TRIGGERED!' Moxie is for the girls whose voice was silenced by shaming, bullying attacks. Moxie is for the girls who are so indoctrinated, they find validation by a boy 'choosing' them over another. Moxie is for the girls who refuse to acknowledge sexism exists, saying we're overreacting and to just let it go.

Moxie is for the boys who know better but still go along with the status quo, for those who speak up, and for those who find misogyny as a badge of honor, receiving all the benefits it offers.

I'm a 39-year-old feminist, raised in a rural town, with only 42 students in my high school graduating class. Moxie hit so close to home in so many ways, I was an emotional wreck while reading it. Sometimes the injustice felt is suffocating... and we always hear 'calm down.'

I applaud Jennifer Mathieu for writing a novel, with an unsure girl as the narrator, about a subject that is always in the news, yet simultaneously always swept under the carpet. Moxie is written with humor, yet it slowly devolves deeper into sexism, which evolves the reader in the passenger seat while girls experience injustice at the hands of their peers and those who should protect them.

I won't lie, I broke down bawling, almost a PTSD moment when the bra-snapping and groping occurred on the pages. When I was thirteen, my girlfriends tore my dress off my body in the middle of a packed cafeteria, taking me beneath the table as I tried to put myself to rights. Being in a school with seventh graders to seniors, where grown men groped me and I was a defenseless child (my 13-year-old boyfriend had to get his senior cousin to protect me, both humiliating to me and emasculating to him), where I had to speak to male teachers and nothing was ever resolved. Those events stick with a person for life, so why put our daughters and sisters through it now? The fact that this still happens 20+ years later, how we've yet to evolve, makes me sick.

We need to have a voice, not be divided and culled from the herd as we're pitted against one another to see who wins the prize. Women raise sons, teaching them how to treat other women, both by example and by how we allow other men to treat us. It starts with us, and we need to come together and uplift one another, not tear each other down, leaving us in a weakened state that is easy to be preyed upon.

Yes, this is a review of a novel. Yes, everything above is my social commentary. Yes, everything I just stated shows the evolution within the novel... without a single spoiler.

I highly recommend Moxie to anyone between the ages of tween and 'cruising the funeral home,' but especially for those who are on the fence, arguing that feminism isn't needed because it's 2017 and we're all equal.

Moxie was a book that truly blew me away. I expected to love it. It was one of my most anticipated releases of the year. It still was leagues better than I expected. Easily one of my favorite reads of the year.

Working in a high school definitely gives you a different perspective as you read "Moxie".
Yes, these things really do happen.
Yes, the smallest of things can be the straw that broke the camel's back.
Yes, if a student made an empowering zine, the teachers would be all over it - half in support, half not.
Here's perhaps the best four things about this book:
1. The tone. The way Vivian is written was very relatable. She's witty, intelligent, and capable. I actually said to one of my students, "I'm reading this book and this character sounds exactly like you." Sounds like a silly thing to point out but it is rare.
2. Relationships. In particular, the mother-daughter relationship. In so many YA novels, parents are painted negatively or simply not addressed at all. This one had a healthy relationship and also drove home the point that parents used to be high schoolers too. As a parent, I appreciated this aspect.
3. The little things. It's never one big thing that tips you to one side of an issue or drives you to action. It's the little things. The snide remarks. Being sent to the office for attire a boy could wear but not you. The t shirts. Little drops in a bucket until it overflows. This author is good at establishing that fact.
4. Giant movements begin with grassroots steps. This book showed that a simple handmade anonymous zine left in bathroom stalls can unite people to create a bigger change.

One awesome quote:
"...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."
This hit me right in the gut. LOVE LOVE LOVE!

One wish:
At times, the novel feels very preachy or can convey the idea that, for women to rise up, men have to be brought down. I don't subscribe to that thinking, and I don't think it is the author's intention for that to come across. Perhaps it was just seeing the jerks get what they deserve, which was nice, honestly.

So, did we buy it? Yes, of course we did. This is an important novel for all teens to read about basic respect and taking care with what your message is - all wrapped up in a sassy little package.

I want to give EVERY girl on earth a copy of this book ASAP! My inner Kathleen Hanna cheered for main character Vivian and her friends as they battled the gross sexist behaviors at their high school! I was in high school when the Riot Grrrl movement started in the 90s and even though I 'm old enough to be Vivian's mother, I was reminded of why I identified with the movement and as a feminist back then and I'm so glad that now I will be able to spread the powerful message with this book to a whole new generation! So dust off your Dr. Martens and run to pick up a copy of this book!

Fave quote:
"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. After today it might be my favorite 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."

I knew I was going to love this book the moment I read the dedication: "For all the teenage women fighting the good fight. And for my twelfth grade Current Topics teacher for calling me a feminazi in front of the entire class. You insulted me, but you also sparked my interest in feminism, so really, the joke is on you. Revenge is best served cold, you jerk."

Hey, that sounds like more than a few of my high school teachers! One actually called me a bitch in front of the whole class...and the class applauded. Not that I'm scarred for life or anything.

So this book is about Vivian Carter, a high school Junior in Nowheresville, Texas. Nowheresville (ok, it’s called East Rockport in the book) is a tiny town on the Gulf Coast that fits every single stereotype of a tiny town, ever. And, if you’ve ever lived in a shitty, tiny town, you know that those stereotypes exist for a reason. The whole town’s lifeblood is the high school football team. Everything is about the football team. The football players are Gods.

"Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live in a town that doesn’t revolve around 17-year-old boys who get laid way too often just because they know how to throw a football."

Yeah, me too.

I am not at all having flashbacks to my own high school experience right now.

Anyway: Vivian begins to get angry at the sexism she sees at her school every day. From boys telling girls to “make them a sandwich” to an awful act of sexual harassment referred to as a “game” called the “bump n’ grab” to just outright sexual assault, Vivian is fed up with the patriarchy of East Rockport. Fed up with women’s bodies being treated like objects. So, taking inspiration from her mom’s misspent youth in the 90s Riot Grrrl movement, she starts a feminist zine called Moxie, where she provides an outlet for the frustration experienced by all the other girls at East Rockport High School.

(Apparently the 90s are now considered to be a million years ago by today’s youth...Meanwhile I still have trouble realizing that 1999 wasn’t ten years ago. And that the majority of my favorite episodes of the Simpsons are as old as I am. Like my favorite ever Treehouse of Horror, parodying the...uh...1996 election...an election which now seems quaint and tame).

(Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos).

I did enjoy this book a lot, but some aspects of it irked me. I loved that Vivian did her best to be inclusive in her Moxie movement, but... Well, this book tried a little too hard to make Vivian’s feminism into something tame. The other girls in her school don’t immediately reject Moxie - in fact, tons of them embrace it. This seems unlikely to me, speaking as someone from a small town where the Patriarchy is Strong. The Patriarchy isn’t just boys. It’s girls who have been brainwashed from birth to think of themselves as secondary citizens - to think of themselves as labels first (girlfriend, wife, mother) rather than as a human being. It’s the girls who look down their noses at other girls for speaking out, for being different. It’s all the girls who went to my high school, basically.

Moxie also fell into the familiar YA trap of “there has to be a romance.” Vivian seems pretty fixated on the idea of having a relationship, because if she doesn’t have one by the time she reaches a certain age, well, there must be something Wrong With Her:

"Like I said, I’m great at fantasy boyfriending, but the truth is I’ve never had a real boyfriend. It always stings to think about it, but I’m in eleventh grade and I’ve never gone out with anyone. Or even kissed a boy. I want a boyfriend because I kind of feel like a dork for never having had one, but I’ve pretty much given up on the idea that it’s going to happen for me in high school."

Ahahaha. This girl really has nothing to complain about. 11th grade and still not dating? Oh, sweetie. Wait til it never happens in high school, then college, then post-college, then the endless unsuccessful attempts at online dating until eventually you give up altogether and take a vow of celibacy.

But of course, our protagonist, by the end of the book, has a lovely woke boyfriend. Because remember, young ladies, if you haven’t had a boyfriend/significant other by the time you’ve finished high school, there’s something Wrong With You. Rather than portraying Vivian as an independent girl who would rather hold off on dating until she gets to college (and, hopefully, an environment not full of total douchebags) Mathieu bends over backwards to show us how Normal with a capital N Vivian is. See - she’s just a Normal teenage girl! She’s Normal in that she has an extensive group of friends! (Even though apparently tries to “fly under the radar” at school...not sure how that’s done when you have tons of friends). She’s also straight! She’s not a lesbian! She obtains a boyfriend just by the socially mandated maximum age! Wouldn’t want the reader to think something was Wrong With Her.

Ugh.

I wish there were more books for adolescent girls that didn’t have “getting into a relationship” as the number one priority. Maybe I’m bitter from my own experience/vow to be forever alone. But I wish in real life, and in fiction, we weren’t so eager to tie a young woman’s self-worth to her relationship status. So what if she’s never had a boyfriend in high school? Have you seen the boys in her high school? We need to stop with this whole culture of telling single people There’s Something Wrong With You. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to lead your own life, and not be forever joined at the hip to another person.

Basically: can we, for once, have a feminist YA story where the protagonist is told “don’t worry, you’re not a dork if you don’t date in high school” or “there’s nothing Wrong With You if you don’t date in high school”?

Bah.

Still - Moxie was a fun read, and definitely a book young women should be reading right now, especially if they live in a shitty small town. Maybe it will inspire other girls to start their own feminist zines. I certainly hope so. I’m so tired of the sexism rampant in this country. It needs to change. And hopefully, books like Moxie will inspire more young people towards change.

I really feel like there should be more YA stories about feminism. This is a great start! I really liked the story and characters!

Look, I think that any book that promotes feminism is awesome. I think some of the characters were cliche, but at the end of the day, any book that makes readers think about feminism is awesome and deserves a place on every shelf.