Press: Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution by Sara Marcus

PRAISE FOR GIRLS TO THE FRONT

Girls to the Front is the first meticulously researched book about Riot Grrrl. I usually don’t get behind projects like this cuz they are usually really bad but I think this book is pretty on.
—Kathleen Hanna

Ambitious and convincing. . . . Girls to the Front makes narrative sense out of events that had so far been recorded only in mythic, unverified, and fragmentary form. more>
—Johanna Fateman, Bookforum

A historical rockument of the revolutionary 90s counterculture Riot Grrrl movement. . . . A rousing inspiration for a new generation of empowered rebel girls to strap on guitars and stick it to The Man.
—Vanity Fair

[Marcus] describes Riot Grrrls' raw, emo agit-pop with a poetic fervor that matches its subject. . . . In prose that's more literary than journalistic, the author resuscitates the giddy courage of "Revolution Girl Style" at its best. . . . Girls to the Front is the well-documented history Riot Grrrl deserves. more>
—Los Angeles Times

Stirring. . . . Eloquent. . . . Like Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain did in Please Kill Me. . . Sara Marcus’s Girls to the Front tells the story of Riot Grrrl, one person at a time.
—Bitch magazine

Marcus does an engaging job of turning so many dispersed and disorganized fragments into a compelling story. And Girls to the Front is not only a history of a fleeting cultural movement. It’s also a fascinating portrait of viral youth culture . . . in the last moments before the Internet started to change everything.
—Double X

[C]aptures all of the exhilaration, disappointment and promise of Riot Grrrl. . . . Marcus is a keen social observer as well as a sharp listener, as gifted at portraying the political forces that defined the early '90s as she is at conveying the sound of Bratmobile's "Cool Schmool." more>
—Philadelphia City Paper

Feminism seems to change every five years. It's hard to grasp the movement. But you don't have to live a lifetime to get the idea and energy of it, and Sara Marcus's book channels what it is to make it yr own. Girls to the Front is not just a keeper of the flame but brings you to yr own fire.
—Kim Gordon

Sara Marcus's Girls to the Front is a great & true & real history. Thank God. At last.
—Eileen Myles, author of Chelsea Girls and Inferno: A Poet's Novel

For a Second Wave feminist like myself, Girls to the Front evokes wonderfully the way the generation after mine soaked up the promise and the punishment of feminist consciousness: all in all, a richly moving story.
—Vivian Gornick

Original, witty, idealistic and down-to-earth, Girls to the Front is a chronicle of women, girls, music, sexism-and, best of all, what it means to be alive. Reader take heart: Feminism is not dead; Generation X is not asleep; friends do matter, and stories will be told. Thank you, Sara Marcus.
—Brenda Wineapple, author of White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Scorching. . . . one hell of an empowering read. . . . As I read, I caught myself holding my head higher, imagining myself screaming along with the riot grrrls at the front of every show. I even gave a few of the usual leering creeps on the subway some nice cold intimidating stares. Fuck yeah. more>
—HTML Giant

Compelling. . . . A brash, gutsy chronicle of the empowering music and feminist movement of the early 1990s. . . . Marcus enthusiastically tracks the "scattered cartographies of rebellion" and captures the combustible excitement of this significant if short-lived moment.
—Publishers Weekly

Marcus has done a commendable job of telling the little-known history of an important social and cultural movement.
—Booklist (starred review)

While absolutely a history of Riot Grrrl and seminal bands deeply involved with and responsible for the subculture, Girls to the Front is also about every girl ever. . . Marcus never loses sight of what made its message of empowerment and self-expression important to so many. This is a thoughtful, careful exploration of that cultural moment. And it’s a taut, visceral read. more>
—Shakespeare & Co Bookstore