Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu

Lynnie

young adult, contemporary fiction

As far as I can tell, Moxie is a book designed to introduce young girls to the notion that we need to stand up for and support other girls, which is a GREAT message. Occasionally, it's also about feminism, though less so. I think that a young reader, particularly someone in middle school, would really enjoy this and feel inspired after reading it BUT the boys in the book are portrayed as such misogynistic neanderthals that I hesitate to actually recommend this to anyone; I mean the boys in the book are depressingly, exceedingly horrible. Even the guy that's supposed to be cute and central to the main character's romance is a major moron at times in the story. I guess he's supposed to be there to prove that all boys aren't misogynistic neanderthals but, honestly, that could have been achieved by just making sure that every other guy in the book isn't one.

Jennifer Mathieu gave us a few really inspiring scenes and I love the girl power message as well as the Riot Grrrl primer, but I hate how all the boys in the book are just caricatures of the worst of toxic masculinity. You can have girl power AND boys that don't completely suck which is why this is getting 2 1/2 stars. I don't think you need to put men down to make women stand tall.