Moxie: A Novel

Mathieu, J. (2017) Moxie: A Novel. New York, NY: Roaring Brook Press.
Moxie is a great fiction story about a girl who lives in Texas and football seems to be the most important thing at her high school.  Vivian was a smart and create girl that was raised by a single mom.  She falls for a boy who moves to her hometown and she is fed up of girls being mistreated. The football players get away with everything and think the school is all about them.  They mistreat girls and and get by with it.  Vivian is the first to stand up to them by anonymously putting out flyers to tell all girls that are fed up with being mistreated by boys put stars and hearts on their hands.  She meets a nice new boy at school who supports the cause and later starts to date him.  Some girls follow along join the movement. Then the school enforces an unfair dress code so the next act is to all wear bathrobes to school and more join the movement.  Then viv's friend Claudia is assaulted by a football quarterback named Mitchell whose dad is the principal.  Claudia makes a complaint against Mitchell and the Principal tells her to "take it as a compliment".  Vivian is furious and orders stickers to place on boys lockers with the next flyer for girls to bring awareness of the bad actions.  The principal threatens to suspend anyone putting stickers on things and forbids "Moxie club".  Finally a girl is rapped by Mitchell and to speak out someone else sends a Moxie flyer out to protest with a "walk out" and I will not tell you the ending but it gets good.  I loved the book Moxie because it was about girls who stand together to bring about change.  I think girls and boys alike will have connections to this story.  This story fun and expressive and make an impactful statement that people can stand up for their rights.  Other books by this author are Afterward, The Truth About Alice and Devoted.