This graphic novel highlights gender inequality in health and the four girls who want to make a change. I couldn’t stop reading as I watched their friendships change and grow while they try to find their voices.
SYNOPSIS
Good friends help you go with the flow.
Best friends help you start a revolution.
Sophomores Abby, Brit, Christine, and Sasha are fed up. Hazelton High never has enough tampons. Or pads. Or adults who will listen.
Sick of an administration that puts football before female health, the girls confront a world that shrugs―or worse, squirms―at the thought of a menstruation revolution. They band together to make a change. It’s no easy task, especially while grappling with everything from crushes to trig to JV track but they have each other’s backs. That is, until one of the girls goes rogue, testing the limits of their friendship and pushing the friends to question the power of their own voices.
Now they must learn to work together to raise each other up. But how to you stand your ground while raising bloody hell? from Goodreads.
REVIEW
This YA graphic novel is about mensuration. I wish that I had been this comfortable taking about periods when I was in high school. My awkward self just couldn’t figure out how to talk about anything private. Not to mention that I was a late bloomer and probably missed the gossip bus on a great many milestones. But that is what makes this book so amazing! I wish I could go back in time and hand it to myself. For those girls, like me, that need a map of sorts or a primer on the subject, this story really hits the spot on so many topics; friendship, periods, and standing up for issues that are important to you.
Sasha is new at school and one day, while wearing white pants, she gets her first period. Seeing her visible crisis (as we all cringe for her) Abby, Brit, and Christine surround her and guide her to the closest bathroom. There, they attempt to reassure her and buy her a pad out of the machine. But, the machine is empty. The machines are always empty! And when the girls find out that the football team has new expensive equipment again they begin to question the priorities of the school.
I really wish that this book would be required reading for all 7 / 8th grade students, boys and girls. And administrators at schools. Not only does it normalize periods, it outlines the methods of social change and highlights how to make and keep friends through kindness, caring, and communication.
Tell me, please! What book do you wish you could hand your younger self?
Silver Button Books 