I heard about this book on the Reading Envy podcast, and went in knowing it was YA. It does deal with the unwarranted, negative perceptions of the 'feminist' label, as well as the fact that even Viv's sweet boyfriend might not understand the girls' perspective (i.e., the systemic sexism and misogyny they've experienced their whole lives) well enough to take their side when it comes to believing or not believing claims of attempted rape-he is not a bad guy, he is just uninformed/misinformed/indoctrinated with the same system of male-centric thought since birth. It doesn't deal a whole lot with LGBTQA issues (Viv makes friends with one lesbian couple at her school but they don't really play a significant role in the story) or race issues (since it's Texas, there are a significant number of Hispanic characters Viv realizes at one point that the school's beauty ideal is 'white and thin'). In that way I could feel that the story was totally not real, but at the same time it felt all too real. This story uses pretty clearcut and extreme instances of sexism-the school's administration and the football players it supports are all seemingly corrupt to the core and it would be hard to argue that the girls are in the wrong to rebel against it, yet they still face opposition from their closest friends (of both genders) and family. Contains some swearing, incidences of sexual assault (potential triggers). Inspired by a mysterious, underground zine urging girls to fight back, the female students unite to rebel against a principal and his underlings who unfairly target and shame girls with their dress code regulations, and who consistently look the other way when it comes to the criminal misbehavior of the principal's star quarterback son and his friends. Teen fiction (realistic fiction set in sexist, misogynist small town highschool in modern-day Texas). This is a good book I just think I got to it a bit too late. I think it’s really good girls have a book like this to read that portrays feminism as a really good thing and tells them to aspire to make the world a better place and stand up for themselves.

I do think I was a little bit too old for this book. I don’t want to say cliche because I 100% believe that the sort of things described in this book do happen but in my experience, it’s more subtle sexism that is more common and even harder to fight against because it’s more easily passed off as being a part of life. Maybe it’s because I did go to a big city high school but some of the sexism portrayed in this book felt very exaggerated. There were some parts of this book I couldn’t help but role my eyes at. The only reason it took me so long was that I left my physical copy at home when I went back to school and only just now decided to finish it by checking out the audiobook from my library.

Moxie by jennifer mathieu