Moxie: a great book for feminists

“Moxie girls fight back!” is one of the most powerful lines in the book “Moxie” by Jennifer Mathieu. The word “moxie” is defined as a force of character, determination, or nerve. My English teacher recommended the book to me as a fun YA ‘feminist manifesto’. “Moxie” is only 25 chapters and 326 pages long, but the story is powerful and definitely worth reading.
“Moxie” is about a junior, Vivian Carter, who lives in the small town of East Rockport, Texas, where high school football is the highlight of everyone’s year. The football team, however, is full of sexist boys who get whatever they want, whether it be funding or rule-breaking. Vivian’s mother, an ex-Riot Grrrl (feminists who listened to all-girl punk bands and fought for rights), now works at a hospital to support herself and Vivian. After Vivian finds her box labeled “my misspent youth” full of polaroids, zines (short for “magazine”), and trinkets from when her mom was a Riot Grrrl, a fire lights inside of Vivian, and she gets fed up with the sexism controlling East Rockport High School. One Friday night when everyone in town is at a football game, Vivian makes a zine and prints hundreds of copies. On Monday before school, she puts them in the girls’ bathrooms and hallways anonymously. Vivian did this as a way to vent, but the zines caught many girls’ attention, and soon the movement Moxie was bigger than Vivian ever imagined it could be.
To be honest, this was one of the most fun books I’ve read. I have a lot of personal reasons, but the book was overall really great. The story was really interesting and easy to relate to. Even though I didn’t have experiences exactly like Vivian’s, I know a lot of girls who have. Her high school experience is similar to many others, which made the story engaging.
The book in general made me feel very powerful as a girl. Reading about other girls who fight back against sexist boys makes me feel like I’m part of something: the movement for equality for women. I read the first few chapters in class when I was bored, but I soon found myself reading for hours on the weekend. It was hard to put the book down.
One of my favorite parts of “Moxie” was the characters. The main character, Vivian, is meant to be easily relatable, so her character isn’t that complex. Her grandparents describe her as “dutiful” in chapter two. This sets up Vivian as a people-pleasing person. Later in the book, she describes herself and her friends as “nice girls,” because they don’t cause trouble. I really liked how this was set up, because instead of holding her back, it fueled her more when she was making and handing out the zines. I love how this girl categorized as being “dutiful” and “nice” is still able to get upset about the inequality between genders.
Warning: Spoilers ahead and a trigger warning for mentions of rape.
This same dynamic was shown in another character as well, Emma Johnson. She’s the only girl in the school who has some respect from the guys who attend. The reason being, she’s the head of the cheer squad, Class Vice President, and really pretty.
Later in the story, after the movement of Moxie kicked off, Emma puts posters all over the school that say there will be a Moxie walkout, because Mitchell Wilson, the principal’s son and biggest jerk at the school, attempted to rape her. This was the biggest turning point in the book, because Emma was supposed to be a perfect girl who didn’t cause trouble or stand out in a bad way. Then, she snapped because a boy pushed her too far and she couldn’t take it anymore.
I really love this character development, because it represents that all women are equal and fight together against the common enemy: sexism. It shows that all girls can be empowered by the movement of equal rights, no matter their personalities, ambitions, or beliefs.
If you’re interested in books that have become movies, “Moxie” is a good story for that. The movie came out on Netflix on March 3, 2021. I was going to watch it and review it alongside the book, but seven minutes in I realized how drastic the two differ. The characters look fairly different from how I imagined them, which I could deal with, but they changed Emma Johnson’s name to Emma Cunningham for no reason. I drew the line when they shifted major story points and dubbed the movie “Moxie” just another teen romantic comedy. After only watching just seven minutes of the movie, I could definitely tell the book was way better.
If you’re into teen romantic-comedies, then you could watch “Moxie” and enjoy it, but I would definitely recommend reading the book first, though you might end up not liking the movie. I’d give the movie one out of five Spartan heads, because it didn’t follow the book closely.
The book “Moxie” is all-around empowering. Along with a really good story of a Texas girl fighting for equal rights, it introduces other girls to fight with her and all of the other girls fighting too. The book is engaging and easy to relate to. I give “Moxie” five out of five Spartan heads.