Moxie: A Novel

I never talk in class. Ever. It’s like when you hear your voice on a recording and it sounds totally bizarre to your ears, like it can’t actually be you. That’s what it’s like to hear my voice out loud in a classroom

Sometimes I wonder if it’s possible to feel nostalgic for something you never actually got to experience yourself.

Girls who try not to stand out. Girls who have secret crushes that they’ll never act on. Girls who sit quietly in class and earn decent grades and hope they won’t be called on to explain the symbolism in line 12 of a poem.

For all the teenage women fighting the good fight.

I want to turn Bikini Kill up as loud as it will go and curl up in my bed and let my body absorb all the lyrics until I have enough strength to deal with whatever is going to happen next.

There was a time when she lived out loud.

Girls who sit quietly in class and earn decent grades and hope they won’t be called on to explain the symbolism in line 12 of a poem.

I give Claudia a look and she smirks back.

“It’s such bullshit,” I mutter as we stop at my locker.

I answer, my voice thick with mock surprise.