oohsarracuda's review
4.0
Excellent. Made me sad, angry, nostalgic, fired-up. I miss Riot Grrrl, and I'm doing a lot of thinking about what Riot Grrrl looks like all grown up...
aus10england's review
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
4.0
As an Olympia native, this was such an engaging read for me, and really helped me learn some local history! I'm surprised that Sleater-Kinney was hardly mentioned.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism
Moderate: Rape and Murder
Minor: War, Homophobia, and Abortion
leiasofia's review
4.0
it's hard making revolution alone, i wish more girls wanted to be riot grrrls nowadays...
katrinky's review
4.0
Not finished yet, but was inspired to get this after watching the kathleen hanna documentary "the punk singer." Marcus' writing is simple, and a little juvenile, but it's colloquial, and relatable, and a book about riot grrrl could never be anything else. It doesn't matter that they didn't play their instruments perfectly. It was never about making music, fundamentally. It was about revolution, radical feminism, and expressions of female experience on our own terms. It was about making the space for ourselves that got taken up and taken away, instead of waiting for a piece of the pie. It was about getting the girls to the front. Of everything.
miocyon's review
4.0
I was doing college radio in the early 90’s and saw the rise of Riot GRRL culture from the music side, but I didn’t know about the broader cultural movement that embodied more than female punk bands. I also didn’t know about the roots of the movement in Olympia, WA, which I have visited many times. Riot Grrls weren’t just Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney and their ilk, but a branch of 3rd(?) wave feminism that brought women together from around the country. This is a very personal account by a woman who was part of it, and the stories are told at the one-on-one level. You learn about the women who led it, mostly in Olympia and DC, but also Omaha and NYC, and their interpersonal relationships. This is both a strength and weakness of the book, it’s great to hear these stories, but it can get confusing at times with the various names and coalitions, especially since it’s not told in a totally temporally linear fashion. Still a great read, especially if you were around at that time.
yourfriendtorie's review
3.0
I read this book in about three days and it brought me right back to exactly the person I was in the early 90's. Being politicized as a young feminist in those years absolutely changed my life. While I didn't exactly identify with Riot Grrrl, my friends and I went on to do things that were just as formative and vital to the course of my adult life that had everything to do with the spirit of RG.
djlanatron's review
3.0
OK, I definitely liked this book and found it very interesting. The way it was written ... bothered me for some reason. I liked passages of it better than others - the flow was just ... off. But I still definitely recommend it!
laurelinwonder's review
5.0
If you are a woman/girl or someone who identifies as a female, or someone who has ever felt like you are not heard, that you have to scream louder than everyone else to be heard. Then this book is for you. If this is not you, read this book anyway, learn what it is like to grow up in a body that our culture continually tries to put into teeny tiny boxes, where only we can hear our voices echo. Learn something, y'all.