"My Riot" by Rick Spears is a rebellious and vibrant graphic novel that pulses with the energy of punk rock. Set against the backdrop of the riot grrrl movement, Spears' narrative unfolds with raw intensity, capturing the essence of self-discovery and empowerment. With its bold art and unapologetic spirit, "My Riot" is a compelling journey of identity and rebellion that will resonate with fans of both graphic novels and punk culture.

My Riot is a rad graphic novel about one girl's journey to self discovery through the Riot Grrrl punk rock movement.

The storyline flows well and the graphic design is clear and dynamic.
There is a feminist theme that flows throughout.

Recommended!

Thank to Netgalley and Oni Press for allowing me to review a copy of My Riot! All thoughts are my own!

My Riot takes place in the early 1990's about a girl named Val who is a ballerina balancing a life between dance, school, and starting her first job. Val begins to have body image issues when her dance school is starting a production of Swan Lake and is up for a lead role, but needs to lose weight in order to get it. She also starts a new job at an ice cream shop but the night before there is a riot in her town after a boy is shot by a police officer. When she starts working, her job is targeted by the rioters and she loses her job as a result. She meets a new friend named Kat who introduces her to the world of punk rock music and concerts. Val comes to realize her wants to play music as opposed to dance and quits dance to learn how to play guitar and start up a punk rock band of her own called The Proper Ladies. Her band becomes the opening act for another band called Up Above, front manned by a guy named Jake who she started to fall for. The Proper Ladies begin to take off in their career, leaving Up Above in the dust. The band starts to travel cross country and has a huge following for their feminist music.

The first thing I look for in graphic novels are the art style and does the visual match the story and this one definitely does. The art really matched the ballet theme in the beginning transitioning into the punk rock theme later.

I enjoyed Val's story of how she found punk rock music and found her confidence at the same time. It also accurately perceived the dance world and how body image is critiqued in dance.

I think it was a really good story, but I it kinda flat for me at the end. I was expecting a grander ending than what we got.

The art style was good but I just think this story wasn't for me. Maybe it would have been when I was younger but for where I am in my life now it just felt a little too teeny

My Riot is a very quickly moving story about a teen girl named Val. Val has a conservative family and dances ballet. Val finally has enough of her parents and societies expectations after she has an experience during a riot in her city. She has an awakening of sorts. She makes friend with a rebellious girl. changes her hair and starts a band. She and her new friends end up being part of the Riot Grrl movement of the 90s. I enjoyed the story thought parts of it seemed rushed. I could relate to Val's experience, having grown up in a conservative family in the 90s and breaking free. I think this would be a great read for girls that love graphic novels and are feeling stifled in their daily lives.

This graphic novel is so raw, beautiful, and real. This genuinely was so punk and I don’t think I could love it anymore than I already do

This graphic novel is enjoyable, but not wholly intriguing. The story felt incomplete to me, there was more that I wanted to know. I felt like I didn't get to know the characters enough.

I loved the art and style in this book. It perfectly fit the story and set the mood for what was being told. I did feel the plot moved kind of fast, not really pausing to think of heavier situations. It felt like we glossed over her eating disorder. But the story about the riot grrl era was fun and funky. I loved the characters.

This graphic novel was just ok. I feel like there were major plot points that were resolved way to quickly. I would have loved it some of those had been discussed longer than a few pages. Overall, this was meh for me.

Graphic novels have to be very good to capture my attention and keep me invested. This one didn’t. It wasn’t bad, just okay.

This short graphic novel was a fun read! The art style and overall aesthetic of the book are very cute. However, the pacing was off at times and could go from feeling fast-paced to slow and dragged out very quickly. There are a bunch of great issues that are brought up throughout but it doesn't feel as if they got the amount of detail they deserve.

It was not a bad book, the plot development was just too fast and 'cartoony' in some instances. Overall, I loved the art style and the story, so it was not a bad book.

My Riot is a 90s YA coming of age graphic novel that, if you couldn’t tell just by looking, is filled with punk attitude, grunge aesthetic, and a rebellious streak.

As a late 90s (’97) baby, some references and obscurities of the time were a little lost on me, but that’s not to say I couldn’t hazard a guess or appreciate them, and I think the same can be said for any generation who gives this a read.

This graphic novel was empowering, and showed a shift in personality, attitude, and overall femininity that I believe hits every woman at one point or another. It was so easy to resonate with the characters, and it was incredible to witness all of the different paths of this visual journey – a graphic novel was 100% the best output for this story, giving an aesthetically pleasing visualisation to what otherwise I believe would have been a hard to encapsulate prose story.

I liked this well enough. I love a good little adventure story and feel this story has quite a bit of promise. I would be interested to read the next one and see where it goes next.

I don’t know if the art style was really my thing, but I liked the pink color scheme. The world-building of this was done really well and that was probably my favorite part of the whole thing so I’m interested to learn more about it. Plot-wise there was definitely promise in it as a concept but it was very slow and dragged out that I found myself getting bored a lot of the time. As for the characters, I don’t know if I was crazy about any of them whilst I’m sure given the circumstances they’ll grow and develop in further iterations but throughout this, I just found them a bit annoying and not as fleshed out as they could have been.

Overall despite not being super invested in this one, I’m definitely interested in reading more to see where the story goes.

I was really looking forward to reading this graphic novel and it did not disappoint! The style of the artwork just felt like it fit so perfectly with the setting and theme of this story, and it really just made my time reading this even better. I loved reading about Val coming of age and being able to find herself and figure out what she truly loves doing, and I love even more that what she loves is punk rock and that she forms her own band. This graphic novel focuses on a lot of important topics, and I enjoyed my time reading it. If you're a fan of graphic novels, I definitely recommend giving this one a shot!

Thank you so much to Oni Press and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 stars

"My Riot" was a roller coaster. This graphic novel is a coming of age story about a girl in the '90s who, while she's battling to discover herself, decides to form her own band with a friend.

I enjoyed certain aspects of this book while there were some others that didn't do it for me. First, I liked how it touched on serious social issues like eating disorders, the pressure of society on teenage girls' bodies, and consent. However, the way they were handled felt superficial and left room for inconsistencies in the novel. For example, the riots happening in the city were introduced to the story but never got explained at all.

Now, the main character was another thing that kept me from liking this completely. While I appreciated how "real" the authors tried to make her, I also thought that her extreme rebellious personality made her an insufferable character tremendously easy to hate. She had no filter and managed to push away important people in her life. I did like the first half of the book, when we get to see a nice girl and not a jerk that didn't have any consideration for other people's feelings.

It's not a story that I'd personally come back to, but I'm sure it's something others might enjoy.

This was ADORABLE! I really loved this Graphic Novel, giving us a glimpse into the 90s grunge rock! Diversity, feminism and music combined with the nostalgia that only those of us who lived in the 90s would feel. I enjoyed this from cover to cover !

I loved this! Following Val as she finds her passion for Riot Grrrl punk and finds her footing is exciting and engaging.

This was a fun 90's era YA graphic novel full of grrl power! Nostalgia won out in this one. It was enjoyable and I liked the artwork.

Prose (Story): Val, a white teen from suburbia who studies ballet and has pretty much spent a lifetime keeping to herself, is growing discontent with dancing and the constant pressures of dieting or - worse - smoking in order to drop weight. One night while working at her job at an ice cream shop, a riot breaks out in the neighborhood, and in the process Val's store is invaded by looters and badly vandalized. She also meets another girl her age that night, one of the looters no less, who seems the opposite of Val in every way - free-spirited, her own person, raging against society - and the entire experience clicks something in Val, in a way that changes her forever. With the help of the girl from the riot - now her new friend - Val forms a band and enters the world of punk rock, ditching ballet and dying her hair and embracing an entirely new and rebellious life.

Don's (Review): I really wanted to like this one, especially after identifying with Val and her journey in the opening scenes. But as I read on, this graphic novel lost my interest, becoming predictable yet somehow straining believability at the same time. People of color - even a Black girl the ladies bring into their band, turning her into a major supporting character - aren't exactly depicted in an always flattering light, and the relationship between Val and her mom comes off a little farfetched when, in the beginning, the two seem to argue or disagree on everything Val wants to do, Mom essentially worried about Val because she's young and immature ... until out of nowhere the mom suddenly seems to have an epiphany and pretty much gives her daughter the greenight for whatever she wants to do. The artwork, by Emmett Helen, is really good, but for me the color palette of black and white pages saturated in or overlayed with blotches of pastel colors throughout - presumably to set the mood for the punk rock-themed narrative? - left me bored and easily able to put the book down (sadly, without being especially anxious to pick it up again). Nothing wrong with the story or writing itself really, and in fact the scenes where the band is playing concerts in grubby venues or clubs befitting their musical style, are when the story comes to life; those scenes, brief as they are, kept me reading. It just sometimes felt like everything else, all that tropey story, got in the way of something that could have been so much better. 2.5/5 stars

NOTE: I received a free ARC of this title from NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.