A review by callofthelibrary
Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution by Sara Marcus

2.5

incredibly difficult to rate this. sara marcus was perhaps the wrong person to write this history i find her pretty unprofessional for much of the book and most of my issues stem exclusively from her analysis (from her paltry understanding of broader feminist movements of the late 80s/early 90s, which i was willing to forgive at the beginning since that wouldve been the exposure younger teen girls wouldve had at that particular point in history, to her weird comments about non-riot grrl girl bands, to her dismal attitude and factual incorrectness around women in dc, to the kathleen hanna heroworship, to the issues with race in the final sections, to the repeated vilification of jessica hopper with little grace for the fact she was like sixteen, to the biphobia?? and on and on and on there's simply too much to say). the passion is there in the interviews and zines and its hard not to be swept up in it at points. i have a lot of respect for riot grrl as a youth movement but i feel like the retrospective analysis of it is so flawed and dismissive. i imagine this book was a source of a lot of that, unfortunately.