Book Review :: Moxie, by Jennifer Mathieu

Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu
ISBN: 9781444940633
on 21st September 2017
Genres: Feminism, Fiction, Young Adult
Pages: 340
Source: Hachette Publishing NZ
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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.

Last updated on 28 March 2023

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What is Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu about?

Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu is the story of Vivian Carter. She’s had enough of the boys at school getting away with crass t-shirts, sexist comments, and inappropriate behaviour. So she does what her mother might have done in the 90s Riot Grrrls: she prints a magazine and anonymously distributes it throughout her school.

But she didn’t realise that her first edition of Moxie was going to be such a hit; she inadvertently starts a girl revolution.

Spurred on by the response of the girls (and even a guy), Viv prints several editions of Moxie throughout her school year, each one receiving more kudos and attention than the last. Other girls in the school, including Viv’s friend Lucy, start using the Moxie name for fundraising for the girl’s soccer team, for standing up for what’s right; eventually, the name Moxie is no longer just the title of a zine, but a school-wide movement of girls.

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My thoughts on Moxie

Moxie was a great contemporary young adult novel looking at an incredibly important topic: feminism. It’s a theme that not many YA authors delve into – at least not many that I’ve read; fee free to link up some YA books in the comments that look at this topic – and Mathieu does it very well.

The characters are pretty spot-on. Viv isn’t sure that what she’s started will make a difference, but she goes ahead and does it anyway. Her friend Claudia is a little apprehensive about the whole Moxie thing, even though she doesn’t know it’s Viv behind it. Lucy, the new girl in school, is excited by the concept and starts using the Moxie name for other things, also now knowing that it’s Viv’s creation. Mitchell is the resident sexist that starts the whole thing to begin with. Then there’s Seth, the new boy at school who Viv eventually starts seeing. He’s the slightly mysterious guy who discovers that Viv is the Moxie girl and helps her with distributing the zines, making copies, and standing with the girls as they fight for what’s right.

Of course, nothing can ever go smoothly in these situations. Friendships and relationships are tested, lies are told, truths are revealed, and secrets are spilled.

While the writing felt a little on the young side, Viv is a junior in high school, so most of the time her voice was appropriate for her age. It was very easy to read, the majority of it was read in one sitting, but would I pick it up again? Probably not. But was it a good read? Yeah, totally. And I did enjoy the issued that were raised in it, and I think there should be more YA books like it.

If you’re after a YA novel about girls kicking butt in their high schools then you should pick up Moxie.

Have you read Moxie? What did you think? 

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Thank you to Hachette Publishing NZ for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.