Juliet Takes a Breath

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How does it all come together, she wonders, the way you do when you’re first venturing out into the world. What I found with Juliet Takes A Breath was a character I could adore but a story short on depth because…graphic novel length, I think. Second of all, because I just think there's something entirely glorious about referring to yourself as a ferocious cunt. It’s not a favorite of mine by any means, but I still feel there is so much value in Juliet’s story. It was breathtaking and sharp, full of so much goodness I know I'll be able to find new things again and again.

See, she’s going to intern with Harlowe Brisbane - her favourite feminist author, someone whose last work on feminism, self-love and lots of other things will help Juliet find her ever elusive epiphany.Yet I was constantly impressed that Rivera managed to make this journey so specific yet so universal. This is more than a story about being a lesbian and a feminist, this is a story about being true to yourself!

She goes to become the intern of a powerful feminist guru, and discovers the brilliant women of color propping the guru up (and holding her accountable, for the most part). At the heart, it is a coming of age story that showed the realities of how hard it can be for families to accept but also that not perhaps not everyone will be like that and there will be some people who will love you no matter what.Despite being confident in her identity and proud of loving herself as a fat woman with asthma, she still receives the typical phrases from her mother who's in denial— "it's just a phase"—and often craves the support that a community can bring. I live this damn struggle every day and Gabby Rivera managed to perfectly capture it in less than 300 pages. This is brightly colored, lively adaptation of the novel of the same name (which I read and loved over the summer). I think because it was also so heavily reliant on New York slang, which I hear constantly in my day-to-day life but prefer not to read it because it’s extremely informal. For the record, holding hands is totally a Christian thing and not a thing Jewish people do when we bless food, but like, just seeing the word Shabbat in a book is so freaking nice.