Moxie

Moxie is a young adult novel and feminist coming-of-age story by Jennifer Mathieu and published by Roaring Brook Press in 2017. Fed up with the sexist antics of boys at her East Texas high school, unassuming junior Vivian Carter borrows a page from the Riot Grrrl manifesto and starts publishing an anonymous zine called Moxie urging girls to stand up to the harassment. The movement takes on a life of its own as classmates join the call and the girls of East Rockport push back against the authorities who want to keep them docile and quiet. At the same time, Vivian navigates a changing relationship with her mother and a growing romance with her first real boyfriend.

The book’s themes of female empowerment, inclusion, and activism led Time magazine to name Moxie to its list of top 10 young adult books of 2017, and the novel was adapted into a Netflix original film directed by Amy Poehler, released in 2021.

This guide relies on the Square Fish paperback edition issued in 2018.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide include reports of fourth- and second-degree sexual assault of a minor.

Plot Summary

Vivian Carter, raised by a single mom in East Rockport, Texas, is a nice, dutiful girl. She does her chores, turns in her homework, eats dinners next door with her grandparents while her mom works late hours as a nurse, and doesn’t raise her hand in class. She knows her high school revolves around the football team and that nothing is going to change, even if she wants it to.

But one day in her junior English class, Vivian watches Mitchell Wilson, star of the football team and the principal’s entitled son, embarrass a new girl, Lucy Hernandez, by telling her to make him a sandwich. Suddenly, Vivian has had it with boys who bully girls and think sexist jokes are hilarious, and the teachers and administration who do nothing to stop them.

Vivian tells her grandparents about the sandwich remark, and they share that Vivian’s mother, Lisa, spoke out all the time against treatment she thought was unfair. Meemaw calls it moxie. Vivian knows the outlines of her mother’s life; she left East Texas after high school to move to Washington State to follow the punk bands she loved, met and married Vivian’s dad, then moved back to East Rockport to raise Vivian when her husband was killed in a motorcycle crash. Ever since, it’s just been the two of them.

Curious, Vivian unearths the shoebox her mother keeps in her closet, the one labeled “My Misspent Youth.” She finds cassette tapes, pictures of her mother as a young woman with clunky shoes and hand-drawn tattoos, and small bound newsletters called zines. Vivian listens to the music and learns about the Riot Grrrl movement, led by bold young women, musicians and artists, who spoke out against sexual harassment and called for equal rights and female empowerment.

Spurred by Lucy’s humiliation and by spotting a new boy, Seth Acosta, who is from Austin and nothing like the boys of East Rockport, Vivian makes a zine of her own called Moxie. Afraid to get caught, she distributes it around school in secret early Monday morning. When she sees other girls reading it, Vivian doesn’t admit she’s the author. Only Lucy seems interested in the idea, but then, Lucy is brave enough to call herself a feminist. The idea of speaking up causes a rift between Vivian and her best friend, Claudia.

The zine calls for any girls sick of the football team’s sexist antics to draw hearts and stars on their hands. Viv is afraid she’s the only one who’s done this until she sees her friend Kiera, Lucy, and Seth Acosta all with decorated hands.

Vivian is uncomfortable with her mom’s developing relationship with a coworker, John, and begins to confide in her mother less. In response to random dress code checks at school that shame girls for their attire while permitting boys to wear T-shirts with lewd slogans, Vivian creates a second edition of Moxie calling for girls to wear their bathrobes to school one day. Though she feels nervous about doing so herself, Vivian is cheered by the response from other girls. When Lucy decides to host a bake sale benefiting the girls’ soccer team and register Moxie as the organization, Vivian is excited to see Moxie take on a life of its own.

Seth Acosta catches Vivian distributing Moxie zines and thinks it’s cool that she’s the girl behind it. They spend an evening hanging out, and Vivian enjoys being with Seth. On their next date, she has her first kiss. She can talk to Seth about things, like how irritated she is about a game the boys at school play, the “bump ’n’ grab,” which involves running into a girl in the hallway, then groping her. When it happens to Vivian, she feels violated.

Then Claudia is groped beneath her shirt by Mitchell Wilson in the hallway at school. When Claudia reports the incident to the administration, she is told to take the assault as a compliment and forget the incident over winter break. Vivian is furious on Claudia’s behalf and creates a third zine as well as Moxie stickers that read, “You’re an asshole.” The stickers pop up all over school; one girl puts one on a boy’s shirt after he bumps ’n’ grabs her in the hallway. Stickers even appear on the bumper of Principal Wilson’s truck.

In response, the principal hosts an assembly for the girls where he makes the head cheerleader, Emma Johnson, lecture them about ladylike behavior. He threatens to expel the girls behind Moxie and threatens Lucy with suspension because of her involvement with the bake sale. Vivian is shaken and feels it’s best for Moxie to be quiet for a while. She takes solace in her progressing relationship with Seth, who reminds her that not all guys are assholes. But Vivian misses having Moxie to speak out, especially when some of the high school boys engage in an online game they call March Madness, which involves publicly ranking girls on their sexual attractiveness. Vivian hates how the game objectifies the girls, but when she creates a fourth Moxie zine, people note that it just seems angry, without a call to action.

Then another girl organizes a Moxie craft sale in a community building, away from school. Only girls are allowed to attend, and they have a wonderful time together. Vivian feels a rising sense of feminist solidarity that cuts across boundaries of race, class, and popularity that typically segregate the school.

Then a flyer appears from an anonymous girl calling for a Moxie walkout from school to protest violence against girls. The author claims that Mitchell Wilson tried to rape her and that the administration is doing nothing about it. Principal Wilson threatens to expel any girl who walks out, and Vivian and her friends wonder if they dare risk their futures and chances at college over this issue. The day of the walkout, as Vivian sits frozen in class, she sees good-girl and head cheerleader Emma Johnson stand up, swear at Mitchell Wilson, write “Moxie” on her arm in marker, and walk out. Vivian realizes that Emma made the flyer and walks out with her.

Almost half the girls of East Rockport High join them in the protest, and Vivian feels a sense of exhilaration at their action. As the principal shouts threats of expulsion, the girls roar a chant in response, refusing his attempts to cover up his son’s crime or to silence their voices.

Principal Wilson is discovered to be defrauding the school of money and resigns his position. At the end of the school year, with a new principal, the girls wonder if much will change next year, but Vivian feels a new sense of hope and possibility for her future. She ends her last day of school by talking with Emma Johnson and inviting her to a sleepover. Emma has ideas for Moxie’s future, and Vivian is glad that Moxie has become a movement that goes beyond what she started and now belongs to all the girls of East Rockport High.