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aliciaclarereads 's review for:
Juliet Takes a Breath
by Gabby Rivera
EDIT: I just saw that this book is being reissued, which I'm guessing means it was also edited by the new publisher distributing it. That makes me really happy because this book had so much about it that was great but it really needed a stronger edit to make the story really shine. I'm happy for the book and rooting for Gabby Rivera's success!
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I had a bit of mixed feelings on this one. First of all, this book is filled to the brim with queerness and women. Women, especially Latina and black women, get a really big voice in this book which is so excellent. Rivera is also really funny. Her portrait of Portland and crazy white lady feminism was hysterical and so incredibly accurate. I kept rolling my eyes so hard at Harlowe, which she super deserved. The last third of the book was also really strong. Juliet really started to come into her own, and the scenes where she goes to a big queer POC party was really wonderful and beautiful.
About 75% of the way through the book, it becomes explicit that the book is set in 2002, which resolved a lot of my initial problems. Juliet is really clueless about a lot of basic terminology, such as preferred pronouns, allies, intersectional feminism, etc. I was really surprised that a girl who attends a liberal arts private college in the age of twitter and tumblr discourse didn't know these terms. When I realized that, Juliet's cluelessness made SO MUCH more sense to me. The access young kids have now to queer resources and language through the internet is incredible. It's such a shame that generations of kids didn't have the same resources. Maybe I missed something early on in the story, but it wasn't made explicitly clear.
Which leads to my larger point: this story really needed a stronger editing process. A lot of the story felt weirdly rushed, but then parts just went on for a little too long. The ending starts to build on this theme of Juliet needing to breath that really wasn't there for the first half of the story, but I wish it had been! The copy I read had some weird formatting issues, which is just an unnecessary distraction for the reader.
Basically, Gabby Rivera has a really wonderful voice, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else she writes (this hinted Latina scifi punk band story sounds AMAZING). I think she deserves a really strong editor to help her polish off the stories and make them completely shine. It think it's super valuable to have Rivera's voice literary world.
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I had a bit of mixed feelings on this one. First of all, this book is filled to the brim with queerness and women. Women, especially Latina and black women, get a really big voice in this book which is so excellent. Rivera is also really funny. Her portrait of Portland and crazy white lady feminism was hysterical and so incredibly accurate. I kept rolling my eyes so hard at Harlowe, which she super deserved. The last third of the book was also really strong. Juliet really started to come into her own, and the scenes where she goes to a big queer POC party was really wonderful and beautiful.
About 75% of the way through the book, it becomes explicit that the book is set in 2002, which resolved a lot of my initial problems. Juliet is really clueless about a lot of basic terminology, such as preferred pronouns, allies, intersectional feminism, etc. I was really surprised that a girl who attends a liberal arts private college in the age of twitter and tumblr discourse didn't know these terms. When I realized that, Juliet's cluelessness made SO MUCH more sense to me. The access young kids have now to queer resources and language through the internet is incredible. It's such a shame that generations of kids didn't have the same resources. Maybe I missed something early on in the story, but it wasn't made explicitly clear.
Which leads to my larger point: this story really needed a stronger editing process. A lot of the story felt weirdly rushed, but then parts just went on for a little too long. The ending starts to build on this theme of Juliet needing to breath that really wasn't there for the first half of the story, but I wish it had been! The copy I read had some weird formatting issues, which is just an unnecessary distraction for the reader.
Basically, Gabby Rivera has a really wonderful voice, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else she writes (this hinted Latina scifi punk band story sounds AMAZING). I think she deserves a really strong editor to help her polish off the stories and make them completely shine. It think it's super valuable to have Rivera's voice literary world.