Can you tell how I’m spending my long long weekend? Six Angry Girls by @adrienne_kisner is a delightful YA novel which centres around mock trial, feminism and knitting. Presented in alternate narratives, we meet Raina, whose boyfriend dumps her partway through her epic senior year and throws her life into chaos, and Millie, whose mock trial team kicks her out despite the fact that she does all the work. Thanks to some unexpected advice from an advice columnist, Raina finds a new passion for knitting and political activism, and ends up inspiring Millie to start her own mock trial team, joining with four other angry girls to smash the patriarchy while they’re at it.

Listing all the subject matter that this book covers – toxic masculinity, judicial bias, political activism, gender identity and pronouns, sexuality, parental expectations and gender bias – you’d think it’d be heavy going. But this is a lovely, light, thoughtful and funny narrative that left me feeling incredibly joyful when I reached the end. It also left me feeling really proud of the people I see around me, young and old, who are proudly fighting battles in their own way to make the world a better place, for those around them on a larger scale as well as for themselves. Not accepting the stereotypes of heteronormativity that tell them they should act/ think/ be/ achieve a certain way. Recognising that change is ok when it helps you achieve the outcome you want, and can feel proud of. Plus – a book with a kick-ass teacher librarian? Hell yes!

Six Angry Girls is a play on the title of the US courtroom drama Twelve Angry Men – a humorous nod to the idea that you only need half the amount of women to accomplish the same thing that a group of men could do. But it also works nicely with the mock trial setting and legal case note chapter headings to frame the many battles that the young women in this gem of a book face. This is a lovely read, presenting some complex and contemporary ideas about feminism and equality in smart, accessible and non-controversial prose. Highly recommended.