This is everything I've ever wanted in a graphic novel. 90s. Riot Grrls. Punk Rock. Feminism. Reading this was an absolute blast and I found myself relating heavily to Val, from her eating disorder to her love of music.

It was beautifully messy between the characters, showing us Val's side as well as glimpses of those around her. The writers really played with character dynamics and were able to portray scenarios that I've seen before, but without turning the characters into caricatures. Big, big plus.

The only criticism I have is the ending felt very rushed. Throughout the entire story, it flowed slowly and seamlessly between scene to scene, without feeling jumbled. It was the perfect pace. And then when it got to the ending, it switched gears (and tense) by going at a breakneck speed. It switched from a present day prose to a past prose. Having an epilogue page before the switch probably would have helped the transition.

Still, a wonderful, wonderful read that I'll be thinking about for years to come.

I did truly think it was a proper depiction of the riot girl movement in the 90’s, starting from the trashy band, to getting their first gig (maybe too soon), all the way to getting a committed fan base. It was so fun to read ! I’m not a big fan of the art style, but I am not letting it take away from my rating. Hey, not all art is for everyone !

Fun coming-of-age graphic novel. Riot-Grrrl music scene. Finding and doing what makes you happy.

Valerie Simmons is increasingly aware that her buttoned-up, ballet-and-school life isn't what she wants. A chance meeting with Kat opens up a whole new world of music and discovery. Val and Kat start a (pretty awful) punk rock band, that turns into a pretty awesome band and experience. Leading Kat to see the joy one can get by following their own path.

**I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**

Teenage me would have wanted to be this story! This was a great coming of age story about choosing your own path and finding what matters to you. With the added bonus of punk rock and feminism whats not to love!
Thanks to Netgalley for allowing me to read an ARC of this story in return for an honest review.

Set in the 199os, at the height of the punk rock movement, 17 year old Valerie is excited to start at her first job while continuing to pursue her dream to become a ballerina. A riot resulting from a police shooting, meeting her new best friend Kat, and punk music combine to set her life off on a very different course.

Val pushes back against negative body talk from her ballet instructor, unrealistic expectations from her parents, and uncertainty about who she is. Music helps her understand herself and allows her the freedom to express all of her frustrations.

This story of friendship, family, and a love of music will speak to everyone who has connected with others through music. Overall, 4 out of 5 stars.

A feminist graphic novel that is raw, inspiring, and real. If you grew up in the 90s, you're going to relate to Val. She's everything that you were and everything that you wanted to be.

The story follows Val from being a ballerina to finding her true self in punk rock. She tackles typical young adult themes: eating disorders, smoking, boys, love, sex...It's a graphic novel, so nothing gets too deep of a storyline, but it's all there for the reader to feel.

Overall, a fantastic read, and I highly recommend this one.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my digital ARC.

What a beautiful book to portray the rage of teenage years. I loved this story, the journey, the characters, and everything tying together so true to life.

* reviewed from uncorrected eARC via netgalley

teen/adult graphic novel (for mature teens-contains cigarette use, sexual situations, eating disorder)
written by Rick Spears (he, him) and illustrated by Emmett Helen (they, them)

17 y.o. awkward misfit, friendless ballerina becomes 90s punk rock star with a new Best Friend, and suddenly all the boys are interested--Valerie's story has tons of teen appeal (except for the smoking, eating disorder, etc.). This book has great artwork and a fast-paced plot--thumbs up.

Just to let you know, this book was received as an eARC from NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. 
My Riot is set to be published on October 20th 2020. 
A little bit about the book:
Set in the early '90s, My Riot is about a trio of teen girls team up to form a rock band and shake off society's expectations of what it means to be a young woman coming of age in the modern world.
Blurb from Netgalley
1991—Val, a teenager from a conservative family, has grown up dreaming of becoming a ballerina, but recently something has changed. She’s begun feeling pressure to conform to a specific idea of beauty, body type, and a personality that just doesn’t fit.
Val meets Kat, a smart, witty girl that doesn’t take any crap off anyone. Kat introduces Val to punk rock. Along with Rudie, another new friend, the three form an all-girl punk band they ironically name The Proper Ladies.
Soon Val and her friends find themselves caught up in a movement with other girls also starting bands—also finding their voice. Collectively, these “riot grrrls” discover that their songs ring out loud and powerful, and for Val, there’s no going back.
Content warnings: Eating disorders, body image issues, misogyny
[SPOILERS]
My Riot is an extremely well told story in graphic novel form. It follows Val, a seventeen year old ballerina who mets a new friend and decides she wants quit ballet and start a band. We follow val as she meets this new friend, Kat, and starts to discover who she really wants to be, what type of person she is looking to become, as she doesn’t feel comfortable with societies version of ‘Normal’.
We follow Val through her through a long period of time in the 188 pages of the graphic novel, with the end briefly summing up everything that has happened with the band, and where Val ends up. 
What I liked:
+ The art style was very basic, but with faded words in the background e.g. posters, and the colour scheme, which was quite plain, I actually liked it a lot, it was very muted and made me focus a lot more on the story as well as the images.
+ The story itself was also pretty basic, about a girl who grew up doing what her parents wanted and finding her own two feet. But for some reason it was gripping and exhilarating and I wanted to read more and more of it. It really grabbed me. 
+ I loved the lyrics that the band wrote, they were really fun and I could almost hear the music in the background of reading this. 
+ Summing up at the end is both good and bad for me, but I liked how we know what happens next, I love when we can finish a story and not have to wonder what happens next, but this filled up my mind.
+ Her parents, although her mother started out as being a bit of a bitch, she slowly became more and more supportive of Val, and it was really wholesome and sweet. 
What I didn’t like:
- a lot of the story skipped over little bits of information that could have been useful, for example, Val stays out all night, and she runs off because she obviously shouldn’t have stayed out all night without informing her parents, but we get no scene with the aftermath of this. We don’t find out what her parents thought of this, and she wasn’t grounded for it like she was in previous parts of the story. This happens a few times, with there being so little follow up to the context we are giving when we should expect there to be something. 
- I didn’t like the dance instructor, I know this isn’t a fault to the story, but they did say she needed to lose weight and take up smoking despite the fact she was 115 pounds and seventeen... It really made me want to punch her.
- Summing up at the end, it was very quickly done and could have benefitted from a bit more explanation. I understand everything that happened, but it just seemed a little too quickly summed up for me. I wish we got to see what happened to Kat as well some other characters, like her parents.
[SPOILERS END HERE]
Overall, this story was a little basic, but gripping nonetheless. It was a nice short and sweet read, which gave me lots of angst-y teen vibes. I loved the art style and the illustrations, which were done by Emmett Helen.
3/5 Stars

Fun, though I was put off by the amount of bad language used in this comic. I do like it a lot though! It's a musical work of art.

Thanks to NetGalley to giving me this opportunity to read this amazing graphic-novel! I love it!
For the first pages I wasn’t completely in to it, but when I read more and more I was stuck in this story about young girl how love dance ballet but she was told that she need to cut her weight and she finding her self in her own band.
The story is so strong, but I feel like a topic of eating disorder could be more expanded. Overall it was so cool to see the grow that our main character have.
I love three girls in this band and how so much fun they had! I started being a little bit obsessed about this story. When I read Moxie I found how Riot Grrrl was founded and now I read a story that was exploring that in this time when it all happened!
Love, totally recommend and give yourself a treat and read this when it comes up 😇

I received this book as an eARC from Netgalley in exchange for a review.

My Riot is a coming of age story about ballerina Val, as she discovers her love and talents for music.

This graphic novel was beautifully illustrated and told a really fun story. I read it all in one sitting because I was hooked. I loved the way we were able to see Val's change as a character. I also was glad to see that there was discussions of the toxic nature of weight in the ballet industry. I am also glad that we got some exposure on an unhealthy relationships, because this is something we often do not see in graphic novels. I really enjoyed the narrative style of this graphic novel and I feel like it fit with the age Val is supposed to be in the story. I did have some issues with the way the story wrapped up. I would've liked more composition there.

This graphic novel was okay! There were still a lot of thing that felt unfinished to me, like Val's relationship with her parents and her relationships with friends in general. Plus, I didn't like the fact that it is never explicitly stated that Rudie was a lesbian or gender non-conforming!

Fun and sometimes bittersweet story about a fictional band that rises to prominence during the Riot Girrl movement and, in particular, the guitarist's transition from a highly controlled "good girl" living out her parents dreams to a young woman who finds a more truthful identity amid the punk scene.

This graphic novel focus on Val and her friends forming a punk rock band. It’s was a fun read about breaking from society’s expectations of what it means to be a woman. Can’t wait to learn more about the riot grrrl movement.
(Content warning: eating disorder, body issues, alcohol/drug use)

My Riot

“I ran away once but went home when I got hungry.” Lol


Trigger Warning: Eating disorders

I was sent this book by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Seventeen year old Valerie has high ambitions to be a professional ballerina after graduating from her prestigious ballet school where she is forfeiting her body image to meet the unhealthy expectations of her teacher. Suddenly, Valerie is thrown into a world of feminist punk rock after a riot breaks out and she is befriended by the unlikely Kat. Now Valerie has a decision to make,prime ballerina or badass feminist punk rock girl?

My riot, was my first experience in the graphic novel world and I was immediately drawn to the concept of the riot girl era following my love for Moxie and being a feminist myself. The first part of the book compelled my interest with Valerie’s witty personality and humour. I laughed out loud during the first half. However, there was some damaging material concerning eating disorders and unhealthy expectations. The middle of the book was tedious to get through and I found myself wanting to skip to the end. Luckily, I allowed myself to push through because it made the ending worth waiting for.

Although realistic in nature, it was difficult seeing a male character abandon his boundaries for Valerie as personal boundaries in books aren’t usually accurately represented.

Over all, I would give this graphic novel 3/5 stars purely for the friendship between Kat and Val and the general message of the book.

Content Warnings: eating disorders, misogyny, body image issues

I picked up My Riot on a whim from netgalley as I really liked the cover. I was particularly drawn to the style of the main character’s hair. A lil blonde stream is something I have 100% done before I was brave enough to fully bleach my hair, so I wanted to know more about her.

Val is a teenage ballerina from a conservative family in the early 90’s, and she thinks she wants to be a professional ballet dancer. But after being told she’s overweight (ugh major eye roll) and does everything in her power to get that under control. Not in a healthy way either. In a stop eating, start smoking, and other unhealthy mannerisms.

She’s also trying to keep down a job at an ice cream shop, which isn’t something she really has the energy for. Luckily, for her anyway, it gets broken into during a riot! Due to this she ends up having an ice cream fight with another girl and the two hit it off. The two have already crossed paths a few times, but it’s this incident that cemented their friendship.

Kat is unlike the other friends that Val has, especially those she knows through ballet. She’s witty and smart, loud and fat, though most importantly she’s into punk rock.

Thanks to Kat, Val gets her first taste of the punk rock scene, she fully welcomes the noise and crowds. She dives into the mosh pit and she feels something else, something freeing. She sees a new outlook on how her life can be, one that isn’t going to judge her based on appearance.

Unsurprisingly it’s around this time she starts to realise how monotonous ballet has become for her, how there is little joy in the repetitiveness whilst literally starving herself.

It’s funny how one little event can help change your perspective, help remind you that you need to exist for what you enjoy, not what you thought you enjoyed. And mostly definitely not for what society thinks you should be like.

One punk rock show leads to more shows and to a stronger friendship, though their position has changed from fans to performers. Yes that’s right, the two and Rudie join forces and become The Proper Ladies.

The first half of the story didn’t resonate with me fully, but on reflection now I realise that actually yes it does in a way. Only my experience was with cheerleading, not ballet.

I absolutely loved Val taking her life into her own hands. Feeling the inspiration and joy to form a band, to write songs, and to truly not give a fuck about what society expected from her.

Val goes on a wonderful transformation, which of course includes an at home bleach session. We love to see it! I always feel like a completely new person after I’ve dyed my hair, I feel ready to take on the world, but most importantly a fresh head of colour makes me feel like myself again.

Added to this, what the three girls achieve together and the stands they take to make sure men take them seriously was just super INSPIRING.

After finishing reading My Riot I instantly turned to Goodreads to leave a short waffling review. I never do this, but I didn’t want to forget the emotions I felt, I didn’t want to forget that I read most of the last section with tears in my eyes and my heart beating so strongly.

Truly, sometimes you just read a book and feel seel, feel welcomed, feel inspired. Ready to take on the world yourself. In short, My Riot is a graphic novel worth reading, it’s one about finding yourself and becoming who you want to be, not what the world wants to mold you to be. And I couldn’t have been happier.

Finally, if you need further proof of how much I enjoyed and resonated with this graphic novel then check out this illustration of Val at the end of My Riot. Does she look familiar? Yeah, thought so. Perhaps this is my life…

Thank you Netgalley for letting me read this book in return for an honest review.

My Riot by Rick Spears and Emmett Helen is set in 1991 about a girl named Val. Throughout this Graphic Novel we watch how she goes from a ballerina and going through the struggles of that (including body image and the pressures of being a certain weight) to becoming a guitarist and vocalist of a band called 'The Proper Girls' where we see her change, embracing her anger and frustrations. She meets new people like Kat and Rudie and explores crushes and teenage love.

The artwork in this is lovely to see as each character looks different and it is easily followed. The artwork also really matches the tone of the writing. I can't really pinpoint what it was, but something about it made me cry and I was constantly rooting for Val.

Rating- 5⭐

Would I read it again:
Yes, again and again

Would I recommend it:
Yes

This graphic novel is set in the ’90s and follows Valerie, a 17-year-old girl who wants to be a ballerina- at least she thinks she does, that is until she has a chance meeting with Kat, a wild child who doesn't care what anyone thinks and does what she likes. She takes Valerie to a local club that’s showcasing a punk rock band. Valerie meets Jake, the lead guitarist, and singer of the punk rock band Straight Edge, they quickly form a connection and the show inspires Valerie to form a band with Kat and Rudie.
Valerie is dealing with a lot, she’s always gone to ballet class, but lately, she is beginning to realize how much of an effect ballet is having on her health and her instructor pressures her to lose weight. This causes Valerie to take up smoking to suppress her apatite, excessively exercise, not eat all day, and binge then purge. She’s reprimanded for not being ladylike enough by her instructor when she isn’t losing the weight fast enough. This pushes her to her breaking point and she quits. If that isn’t enough, she’s silently being slut-shamed by her mom when her mother discovers a condom wrapper while washing her clothes.

We follow Valerie as she makes some drastic changes in her life, she begins to come into her own as a woman and becomes a strong feminist, channeling her feelings and society’s expectations of girls into her lyrics. Soon the band is performing at more gigs and getting approached by reporters, magazines, and record labels- and Jake, whom Valerie is dating, and the main act of the tour- becomes jealous of Valerie's band- The Proper Ladies, and feels like she used him.

And so, we go on the road with The Proper Ladies as they experience a lot of success and the eventual drifting apart that occurs.

This graphic novel is so great. It truly illustrates the undue pressure that young girls are under to behave and look a certain way to get society’s approval. I think this is such a great graphic novel for teen girls, it deals with sexism, feminism, eating disorders, and teen sex. Its an incredibly empowering novel for young girls everywhere.

4 stars.

**ARC provided by Oni Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I totally loved this book - the art, the story, everything. A teenage girl whose only hobby is dance discovers the world of punk, forms her own band, and grows up along the way. A little rushed here and there, but it felt so real and honest that I didn’t mind!