Moxie features Vivian Carter, who goes to Rockport High School in her small town. However, in her school, a recent riot of sexist dress codes and football players getting away with harrassing girls in plain sight spurs Vivian into taking action. After discovering her mother’s old box full of photos of rockstars and “Riot Grrls”, Vivian decides to create a zine full of different images and text related to going against all the misogynistic qualities that most of the guys in her school possess. After pasting them around the girls’ bathrooms, Vivian realizes that the movement of drawing stars and hearts on hands probably won’t do anything, but the girls around Rockport show up with their hands covered in stars and hearts in silent protest. Vivian soon realizes that she might have a chance to uncover the sexist rules of the principal and fight against the injustice presented at her school.
I really enjoyed this book. Moxie discusses various topics such as sexual assault, sexism, misogyny, and different perspectives on feminism. The author does well to provide realistic characters and diversity. I especially loved how the girls weren't pitted against each other (as it happens way too many times in a book that tries to promote feminism), and were instead all on the same page in the last chapter of the book. I also liked how the author shows that feminism is still feminism, and it doesn’t matter if you are apart of a different generation, such as Vivian’s grandparents having views that feminism wasn’t very impactful. The different ways that people reacted to one of the characters getting sexually assaulted by the quarterback was honestly sad how realistic it was. Moxie does well to issue all the problems that girls face, such as dress codes that are more steered towards them instead of guys. Moreover, while I liked the characters, I felt that the main character was just a carbon copy of her mother. She didn’t have any interests of her own besides this cute boy she say at school, like we get it, he has hair that defies gravity or whatever the book described it to be. In my opinion, I think the romance could have been a sub plot instead of dominating around 10 chapters in a row!? But besides my dislike of romance, I enjoyed the book thoroughly hehe.