Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 04/15/2020 *Starred Review* Molly is an eighth grader at Fisher Middle School, where the patriarchal administration is hell-bent on enforcing a dress code that values compliance over comfort and dignity. Female students are regularly “pulled over,” harassed, and shamed by the callous Dr. Couchman and his henchwoman Fingertip—so named for her favorite rule: “hemlines of shorts, skirts, and dresses will reach below the student’s extended fingertips while standing.” After witnessing a friend’s humiliation at Couchman’s hands, Molly decides enough is enough. She begins publishing everyone’s horror stories through Dress Coded: A Podcast, and as the school year progresses, her peaceful protest grows into a movement. Finally, she and her classmates take their case to the board of education. Molly’s first-person narration, delivered in brief sections—occasionally formatted as bullet points, letters, or transcripts—lends a powerful intimacy to the text. That's good, because this story feels personal, for both Molly and author Firestone. They—and countless others—are fed up, and that energy fuels the beautifully paced pages of this book, full of humor, rage, and heart. An uncommonly sprawling cast of students gives authenticity to Molly’s middle-school experience, bolstered by subplots of friendship, crushes, and vaping, and a triumphant ending shows how systemic change can be made when girls stand together. Absolutely necessary for tweens and teens, especially non-males too busy to bother with toxic, patriarchal nonsense. Straight fire. - Copyright 2020 Booklist.

Booklist - 04/15/2020 *Starred Review* Molly is an eighth grader at Fisher Middle School, where the patriarchal administration is hell-bent on enforcing a dress code that values compliance over comfort and dignity. Female students are regularly “pulled over,” harassed, and shamed by the callous Dr. Couchman and his henchwoman Fingertip—so named for her favorite rule: “hemlines of shorts, skirts, and dresses will reach below the student’s extended fingertips while standing.” After witnessing a friend’s humiliation at Couchman’s hands, Molly decides enough is enough. She begins publishing everyone’s horror stories through Dress Coded: A Podcast, and as the school year progresses, her peaceful protest grows into a movement. Finally, she and her classmates take their case to the board of education. Molly’s first-person narration, delivered in brief sections—occasionally formatted as bullet points, letters, or transcripts—lends a powerful intimacy to the text. That's good, because this story feels personal, for both Molly and author Firestone. They—and countless others—are fed up, and that energy fuels the beautifully paced pages of this book, full of humor, rage, and heart. An uncommonly sprawling cast of students gives authenticity to Molly’s middle-school experience, bolstered by subplots of friendship, crushes, and vaping, and a triumphant ending shows how systemic change can be made when girls stand together. Absolutely necessary for tweens and teens, especially non-males too busy to bother with toxic, patriarchal nonsense. Straight fire. - Copyright 2020 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 05/01/2020 Gr 6–8—When eighth grader Molly Fisher becomes fed up with her school's unfair enforcement of the dress code policy, she starts a podcast in protest. Through interviews she conducts with her classmates, Molly educates her listeners (and readers) on how the dress code is enforced almost exclusively through young women, and disproportionately affects those who have developed sooner or more than their classmates. Outside of school, her family is in crisis after they discover that Molly's brother has been selling tobacco vape pods to younger kids on the bus. The issues are timely without seeming trendy, and Firestone's crackling writing makes every day in Molly's life interesting to read about—even one of the most boring events on Earth, a school board meeting. By painting such a full picture of Molly's life, Firestone shows how difficult it can be to simply exist in the world of middle school. VERDICT Hand this first purchase to blossoming activists of every cause; this is a deeply, often scathingly honest work of modern fiction. —Chance Lee Joyner, Haverhill Public Library, MA - Copyright 2020 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.