Today I’m coming at you with a non-spoiler review of Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu!
Goodreads blurb:
It’s time to fight like a girl!
Vivian Carter is fed up. Fed up with her high school teachers who think 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 mum 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 Moxie, a feminist zine that she distributes anonymously to her classmates. She’s just blowing off steam, but other girls respond and spread the Moxie message. As Viv forges friendships with other young women across the divides of cliques and popularity rankings, she realises that what she has started is nothing short of a girl revolution.
TIME TO FIGHT LIKE A GIRL
A page-turning read with a feminist message, for anyone who has ever had to deal with #everydaysexism
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This is a very empowering read and I think it’s one everyone should read. It talks about feminism in a good way. It shows many ways of how women face sexism on a daily basis!
Now before I go on, I want to mention that personally sexism isn’t a very big problem for me as I get the same opportunities as boys. I’m very grateful for that. Still feminism is about much more than that. It’s also about toxic masculinity or only seeing one type of beauty in adds. It’s about all genders, not just men and women. It’s about being scared when you walk alone home when it’s dark. It’s about sexual assault. It’s about so many problems and a lot of them I do see in my daily life.
CharactersI liked our main character Vivian and I related to her in some way. Through making Moxie, she found a way to stand up for herself when she was afraid to do it in person. She wasn’t perfect though. At first her views of feminism weren’t very intersectional, but she learned and kept an open-mind. She grew and I really appreciated it.
I really liked her friend Lucy. She was fierce and strong. I loved that about her and I loved her friendship with Vivian. That’s another thing I loved about this novel, the amount of girls supporting girls and girl friendships. We really need more of that!
Vivian’s friendship with her best friend Claudia wasn’t perfect though. They were going through a rough patch and I appreciated that narrative. Even though it was sometimes hard, they kept trying and doing stuff for each other. They had their problems but they weren’t gossiping or making fun of each other and I really appreciated that.
I can’t find the creator, but this isn’t mine.
RomanceNow let’s talk about the romance. I definitely shipped it. Seth is a nice guy and I liked him. A lot of people have said that they think the romance was unnecessary, but I disagree. I would argue that it added another layer to the discussion of feminism in this book. When Vivian was talking about some of the sexism issues within the school, Seth said that not all guys are like that and that started both an argument and a discussion. It is indeed true that not all guys are like that, but when sexism is discussed, we are not talking about those guys, we’re talking about the guys / and girls/ and every other gender who are sexist.
PlotThe plot wasn’t fast-paced, but it wasn’t slow either. It had a good pace that kept me entertained. I wasn’t bored at any moment.
Writing styleThe problem that I did have with this book, was the writing style. I found it hard to get into this book, because of it. It didn’t flow very well and at times the way Vivian talked felt unrealistic and stiff. It got better throughout the course of the novel, but I don’t know if that is because I got used to it or if the writing changed slightly. Anyway, I didn’t mind the writing anymore at the end.
Overall I gave this book 4.5 out of 5 stars. I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for an empowering read and who doesn’t mind some romance!
You might also like…
Juliet Takes a Breath by Gaby Rivera and We should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Have you read this book? What did you think?That’s all for this post. I hope you enjoyed it! Thanks for reading! See you next time!
Love,
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