There was much to enjoy here, but I found I couldn't connect with it. I'd read more from this author in the future though.

Grrrls on the Side is a story about finding yourself and discovering your sexuality at a time when it wasn't understood by the world around you. One of the key themes in this novel is finding your place and holding your ground. Grrrls on the Side can really stand up to contemporary works in the LGBT subgenre.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3 stars

cw: homophobia, racism

this pre-release book, grrrls on the side by carrie pack, was published between the time of my reading it and this review.

grrrls on the side is an look at riot grrl culture, from the point of view of a young bisexual girl just breaking into the scene and coming into herself. the book is largely character driven and focuses on the ideas of what makes a rebel a rebel.

pros:
*girls who like girls in a historical novel? excellent. (oh my gd, 1994 counts as history, doesn't it)
*a book that acknowledges the different aspects of sexuality and coming out, and how it's not the same for everyone? also excellent.
*a book that treats the past like something just as real as the present, a time where people felt the same emotions and cared about the same things the same way? where the only thing different is the backdrop of the culture, the bands these girls like, the slang they use, not the fact that they like girls or are radical themselves? excellent.
*zines.

cons:
*very light on plot when it didn't need to be; so much more could have happened to drive the story.
*at some points seems like riot culture 101 instead of a narrative about a girl discovering these things.
*some important points are glossed over or dismissed instead of disussed in depth; race and homophobia are brought up and dealt with, but in a way that somehow seems separate from the characters, or.. i'm not phrasing this well at all, am i? 
grrrls on the side was published june 8, 2017

based on the premise of an f/f relationship in the nineties and riot grrrl punk band, i thought i was going to really enjoy this book. but, it only took the very first line for me to realise that our relationship might be less than harmonious: 

"Heather's got her stupid flannel shirt tied around her stupid, tiny waist. I don't know if I'm more annoyed she looks cuter like that than I do or if it's because I know she's only wearing it as a fashion statement." 

followed a few sentences later by, 

"They only care about that stuff so they can meet boys and go shopping." 

a less than... promising start to a self-declared feminist novel. however, there were some really good feminist messages in here despite a bit of wobbliness. unfortu

nately, i felt that the message dominated everything else. i'm a feminist, and i'm a very political person, and i like having political messages in books. but the message should not be the driving force of the novel, which seemed like it here. the plot was shaped around the message and seemed almost to take a backseat; there was nothing that really gripped me about the plot, or the characters, who seemed rather flat and just like mouthpieces for various opinions. 

there was definitely potential, but i don't think the plot and characters were rounded enough for that potential to be carried out. i don't have any feminist novels i would recommend in its stead, so if you do then drop me a comment because i'd like to read one!

Although the narrative of this novel was a little bit scattered, I found that I really liked it. I liked the characters, I liked the themes, I liked the overall sense of awareness it tried to raise. 

Tabitha is a large high school girl who suffers incredibly bad bullying at the hands of her best friend. Thankfully, while the story opens with that fact, it doesn't linger overly on it. Largely, that is the inciting incident that leads to her finding a Riot Grrrl meet up. 

I was younger than Tabitha is when this book was set, so I can't speak to the realistic side of the story of teenagers in 1994, but it made me so happy to see this group of girls finding strength in each other, speaking up for each other, but also telling each other off when they were out of line, and even coming to find strength and growth in that as well. 

As for the disjointedness in the plot... I found I could forgive a lot of that just because I loved Kate for all of her faults. I loved the counter balance of the character of Jackie. I even loved Cherie, and Marty. And I especially loved Tabitha. Good characters will make up for a lot, in my reading anyway.

Didn't love this but still enjoyed this read. It was really different to some other YA I've read and can imagine it being quite inspiring to many.

I feel like this book portrayed white cis feminism and not intersectional feminizm. It's very mediocre and I sadly had to DNF it. This book hasn't met my expectations at all.

This ticked so many boxes for me : a YA novel set in the early 90s about zines and Riot Grrrl, with a queer MC and a diverse cast of background characters? Sign me up!

This was a DNF for me. 

I just... I wanted so much from this book, and my expectations were NOT met. For those who are saying it is 'accurate' for the era's feminism to not be intersectional, but be ciscentered.... I've read many historical fiction novels that took place way before the 90s, yet they were incredibly feminist and empowering, and did not portray the kind White Feminism that we see here. This one's a no from me.

I love when books manage to fire me up and this got me super pumped. I wasn't born during the punk-era but Peck just has a way of embedding ever with with so much passion and angst accustom to that era. PLus it's an LGBT book that deals with a subculture that people don't often think go hand and hand with the LGBT people.

*I received this ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest opinion*

Ahh, a book about intersectional feminism in the 90's- what's not to love? 

Okay I'll answer that. Mostly I just didn't like the main character- I understand that Tabitha was on a journey of self-discovery and was learning about the world around her, but she made some poor choices, didn't treat other people all that well, and MY GOD said some dumb shit. 
Watching this girl having to be taught time and time again how to be woke to the realities of other people's lives was super frustrating. But at the same time, you could see this book as a teaching instrument for white middle class girls like Tabitha who are reading this book and might not have much of an idea on this sort of stuff. 

The main thing is that this whole book was super interesting and inclusive and in-depth with its feminism. Sure, some of the characters were problematic with their feminism, but the redemption was in these characters being solidly dismissed by their co-stars and educated about why their views were problematic in the first place.

It was dope having a fat bisexual intersectional feminist as the protagonist because that's basically like reading my resume. More of this please.

I had to dnf this book because I really couldn't get into it. If it's alright with you I would like to not write a review for it. Please let me know if you prefer me to write a dnf review.

I wanted to read this book because it's an f/f YA romance centering a fat girl, and I am always interested in finding more fat positive queer representation. I'm glad Tabitha never diets; there is no weight loss arc here. She has a bunch of self loathing and low self esteem around being fat, and is bullied for being fat; I know these things will likely resonate with other fat readers. They resonated for me, felt painfully accurate. Tabitha has an arc around self acceptance and anger about fat oppression. She grows a bit in this regard, thanks to a combination of feminism and the love of a good woman. I didn't particularly care for the finding self acceptance through the love interest part, and was glad it was balanced by her finding a bit of a politic around her fat identity. If you want to read a YA book about becoming politicized around fat identity, this may be an option. It's not exactly a fat positive depiction, more of a fat accepting one.

I thought the additions from the zines were a lovely idea that fell down a bit in execution. I have seen some really awesome writing and politics in zines, and was disappointed that these excerpts were missing that level of quality. Teenagers can be brilliant thinkers and writers, and these excerpts did not reflect that. There were amazing queer fat activist zines at the time this book was set; I really wished that Tabitha could have found those, and through them, found fat activism. (For folks looking for real examples of Riot Grrl zines, I suggest checking out the anthology The Riot Grrrl Collection, edited by Lisa Darms.)

This book had some core problems of structure and plotting; it sort of meandered along and didn't seem to know where it was going. It did not feel like YA, which usually has strengths of tight plotting and/or strong voice and characterization. This lacked both. It did not hold up as a romance for me either, didn't follow a clear romantic arc or have a satisfying happy ending. These problems made it difficult to finish; I did not care about the characters, wasn't driven forward by the plot, I didn't particularly want to spend time hanging out with these people because they weren't that compelling. I wasn't rooting for the love interests to be together; I actually thought they were really badly matched and hoped that they would not stay together. Between Tabitha's denial that racism exists and denial and avoidance in general, her not really getting that Jackie was homeless/precariously housed and what that meant, and her issues around Jackie's butchness, and Jackie's rather intense hatred of Tabitha's bisexuality and tendency to bottle things up and then blurt them out, it seemed clear that they would just keep hurting each other over and over.

I had some other core difficulties with this book. It's a bit difficult to tease out a central narrative from the story because the plotting is so muddled, but in my read, one of the central arcs in the story was about racial conflict within this particular Riot Grrrrl group, and the ways that conflict was inevitably part of Tabitha and Jackie's relationship. On it's face, that's not necessarily an issue. The way it played out in the story was where the problems exist. It centered on Tabitha, a white girl, learning that racism exists and is not ok, and that she needed to stop trying to ignore that reality. In the process of her learning to accept this reality, the Black women in the group get hurt again and again by the blatant racism of the white women, and Tabitha hurts Jackie repeatedly. This revelation for Tabitha comes at the end of the book (via a conversation with a white woman), and we don't really get to see what she is going to do about it. I personally did not believe that she was going to do much. This sets up the characters of color in the story (especially Jackie) to serve the learning of the white MC, which is a deeply problematic choice. Depicting this kind of racism without challenge for almost the entirety of the book is harmful. It's also just...a really disappointingly simple arc about racism. It centers white learning and white characters. That learning is very basic (racism is real). She never has to really take action about it. We are at a time in YA when folks are publishing such complex nuanced interesting books about racism; this doesn't even come close to those. 

Another core issue I had with this book was the way it grappled with oppression and violence. We see characters get bullied, get sexually assaulted, get queer bashed, get threatened, we see deeply harmful responses to violence, we see fat hatred, queer hatred, racism, misogyny, butch hatred, and bisexual hatred. And almost none of it gets challenged textually or by other characters. The story is so intensely weighed down by all these really harmful things that are just everywhere throughout the text, unchallenged. It made the book a very difficult read. Especially since I think that the Riot Grrrl feminism depicted in the book was supposed to be a challenge to them...and it just wasn't. It was not a feminism that even really understood these issues, much less grappled with them effectively. It was a deeply white feminism that had no tools to deal with core issues of misogyny, much less any other forms of oppression. I don't think that this is an accurate depiction of Riot Grrrl feminism, and it definitely was not a balance, challenge, or balm for the oppression depicted in this book. 

As a survivor of sexual assault, I was quite disappointed in the depiction of sexual assault in the story. It felt like it was thrown in there carelessly. In particular the arc around Tabitha's experience felt deeply insulting and disrespectful toward survivors both now and particularly teen survivors assaulted during the timeframe of the book. The idea that a school would act so swiftly and thoroughly to protect a student who had been horribly bullied with no action whatsoever up until that point felt laughably inaccurate and handwavy. That her whole arc with Kate around this would include that kind of apology and forgiveness was deeply insulting.

Trigger Warnings:: Detailed description of sexual assault of a minor by an adult, detailed description of sexual assault in the context of queer hatred, minimization and dismissal of sexual assault by a romantic partner. Bullying described in detail, especially fat hating bullying. Many instances of oppression described in detail that go unchallenged including: heterosexism, queer hatred, bisexual hatred, fat hatred, butch hatred, racism, misogyny. Age gap relationship between 18 yo & 16 yo. Parent with depression. Neglectful parent.

Could have been brilliant if the author went for ANY risks instead of playing it safe. For a book about girls, feminism, sexuality, and defying normative values and roles this book read like a hetero-male with homophobia wrote it. The strongest area of this book is the discussion on sexual assault. It was handled in a way many can relate to and puts the spotlight on all types of unwanted contact instead of just "rape."

I tried to get into it but the story and pacing just wasn't for me but I definitely think others could enjoy it.

There was too much of putting people down in this book even with supposedly supporting someone they got put down. It was all about homophobia fat shaming bullying. I felt very conflicted with that book.

It's hard to say how I felt about this one. On the one hand, it dealt with a world unfamiliar to me (it's set in 1994, I wasn't even born), but on the other hand, some parts of it felt so realistic they felt UNrealistic. Does anyone else ever come across that? It's like, you hear those conversations happening so often in your own life, often framed in the exact same words, so when they're written down on paper they feel trite or unrealistic. It's bizarre, because anything I come across that often ought to sound MORE rather than LESS real, but I don't know. There's something about the same social justice arguments as I see happening on my Twitter feed or Tumblr dash suddenly appearing on page that has thrown me off more than once, and this was one of those books. 

Honestly, I left it rather too late to review this book after reading it (then again, I finished reading it at 2.30am, so it would've been 'late' either way) because I can't remember a lot of the details of how I felt about it. I enjoyed it enough to keep reading, even late into the night, and I found several of the characters engaging. But I wasn't a big fan of the writing style, especially the dialogue. It didn't flow well or feel like realistic conversations (even if, as mentioned above, some of it could've been taken verbatim from my Twitter feed).

Maybe that's what it was -- the conversations were realistic for a written conversation, but they didn't sound all that much like somebody talking, and thus didn't quite convince me as dialogue. I don't know.

I also liked that the book had excerpts from the various zines that the characters were writing, but occasionally these were difficult to read due to Kindle formatting and caused some disruption in my reading experience. Plus I had quite a bit of secondhand teenage cringe while reading them. I think it reminded me too painfully of the embarrassing stuff I used to write when I was like fourteen, and I didn't even have the excuse that it was the 90s. Heh. 

All in all, kind of mixed and nothing really specific because I failed to write a review promptly, but not unenjoyable.

This book will appeal to young girls and also a lot of adults too. Especially if you remember Bikini Kill and the 90's. It tackles some really strong topics and as a coming of age, and introduction to feminist ideas it's a great read. I think it is ambitious in it's attempt to cover a wide range of topics, perhaps too ambitious but I would definitely read more from this author and would recommend to readers who like stories with funny girls and strong voices.

Grrls on the Side was a novel I was very excited to pick up. It sounded like a badass story about 90s feminism and I was looking forward to seeing some f/f romance. Ultimately I felt disappointed by this story and the lack of character development.

I think while the book had very good intentions to fight white feminism, it just didn't really work out. There is a lot of problematic things said in this book and most of the time they do get challenged but it's still not handled well.
There's quite a wide array of diverse characters but not all of them are portrayed well. The main character is a white, fat, bisexual girl. I know many people really loved the fat representation and as far as I can tell, it was very well portrayed. I think the struggles Tabitha has with her body are very realistic, while at the same time she constantly questions herself, realizing this is her body and that she loves it.
Tabitha's main love interest is a lesbian black girl and I thought the portrayal of their relationship was not very well done. It's basically a constant back and forth were Tabitha doesn't understand that the's racist and Jackie doesn't understand she's biphobic. It's important to discuss your differences and Tabitha tries to be very open about questions regarding race but again, I don't think the conversations were handled very well. Tabitha often took her questions too far and she was even aware of that.
I know this is Historial Fiction and a lot of it fits the time period but a line has to be drawn when a book has potential to hurt marginalized people. And I think this book has that for quite a lot of marginalized groups, although I can't speak for many of them.

As far as the general plots goes, I thought it was overall enjoyable but really nothing special. It's a short book with just 230 pages but still felt like it was dragging in parts. Seeing the zines actually printed in the book was fun but that's about it. I really wish this had focused a bit more on positive female friendships in general but it was the opposite. It seemed like a lot of the relationships portrayed in the book, be it romantic or otherwise, were very toxic and I just don't think the book was long enough to challenge all of that.

Grrls on the Side by Carrie Pack is a recent publication by Interlude Press that I was given through Netgalley. All opinions are my own. 

I hadn't heard very much about Grrls on the Side before requesting it through Netgalley, so I was very interested to see what it was about. First of all, I was really impressed that the book began with trigger warnings from the author. It was just a short statement about how the themes of sexual abuse/sexual abuse of minors would be discussed in the novel. I think this sort of thing should definitely be included in most if not all publications - thank you for this! 

Tabitha is an out and proud fat bisexual, which I really loved. The word bisexual is used on the page by her and her first girlfriend, Kate. Throughout the book there are also pages from zines made by various Riot Grrls, including Tabitha's individual one, Chubby Bunny. In this way, I really enjoyed the intersectionality. 

However, I think that there are other ways in which the intersectionality failed in this novel. One of the main Riot Grrls, Marty, often said biphobic and racist things, e.g. people are claiming to be bisexual because it is trendy, or that race isn't significant to feminism. In some ways, it is important to have this narrative, because white feminism needs to be called out. However, I think that there could have been a lot more done to carry this out. In the end it kind-of feels like the other Riot Grrls just ignore Marty's comments, and they continue to excuse her behaviour, often saying that the black Riot Grrls need to be less harsh on her. And while Tabitha does learn, I just feel like this 'white feminists being redeemed' is not the narrative that I really wanted from this novel. There wasn't enough nuance - and was incredibly cis-centric. 

I think Carrie Pack had really good intentions with Grrls on the Side, but it just wasn't carried out as well as it could have been.