ARC Review: Juliet Takes a Breath, by Gabby Rivera

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Contemporary YA, LGBT+, Feminism

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I have received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was such a positive surprise. I don’t know exactly what I expected from it, but it wasn’t this strong story, which left me open-mouthed at its freshness, its exploration of feminism and intersectionalism, its nonchalant gayness. I’m so here for it.

Juliet Takes a Breath is the story of Juliet, a girl from the Bronx who has just come out to her family just hours before leaving to Portland for an internship with the very famous author Harlowe Brisbane. Now she doesn’t know where she stands with her mom, and if she still accepts her. Also her girlfriend isn’t picking up her calls, and feminism is a big question mark.

This book was such a nice read – it raises questions that we need to think about if we want to become good feminists. What is being a white ally? Who are the women that history forgot? Why is it important to have a community of people just like you? This book made me nod, smile and pay close attention to it. There are lots of bits of wisdom on it:

“I understood ‘microaggressions’ to mean ‘little bullshit acts of racism.”

I also loved that there is quite a lot about writing, about being a black woman writer, about the importance of them in the literary world and for their community. I simply had to add Kindred by Octavia E. Butler to my TBR after this!

“Reading would make me brilliant, but writing would make me infinite.”

I highly recommend this book! I wish the plot had been a little less rushed, it felt to me that Juliet grew as a character a bit too fast. But it was still a fantastic read!