It's so hard to balance the respect you have for your roots, your parents, your life forces, with the knowledge that some days are going to be harder than others. The sharpness and poignancy of this book will not be forgotten by me, it's a terribly important story, a true look into how queer women of colour are struggling and it's a great intro book to inclusionary feminism which also serves as a critique and reminder to white feminist. Juliet Takes a Breath: The Graphic Novel is an enjoyable adaptation of Juliet’s journey of finding herself, focusing on the joy and pride of being a queer person of color. However, I read the first few pages and was kinda hooked by the voice of Juliet, a 19-year-old Latina, living in the Bronx. The book expecting me to feel bad for Juliet after Lainie cheated on her, even though Juliet was fully intending to cheat on Lainie with the new girl she met at the library.

Her whole stay with Harlowe, too, felt suspect -- I can see the summer internship as reality, but letting a strange teenager crash on your couch all summer (no matter the personality type) seemed a bit too out there to believe. I loved how Gabby did not shy away from toxic masculinity, the problematic religious views of homosexuality, and racism. Juliet Milagros Palante might be a fictional character but I would say she is the voice of a whole generation. This woman, Harlowe, is terrible (and judging by the excerpts we get to read, her book is just as terrible).Where Holden dismisses the believes of others over his own somewhat narrow-minded ideas, which are based on his misinterpretation of the Burns poem (which he never really bothers to find out more about), Juliet wants to learn more about the ideas in the book that she regards as her "Bible" and manages to arrange an internship with its author. Winner of the 2017 Silver IPPY Award for Best LGBTQ Fiction Juliet Takes A Breath up for has been selected by the Amelia Bloomer Project Committee of the American Library Association(ALA) for the 2017 Amelia Bloomer List Y’all, Roxane Gay said my book Juliet Takes a Breath was “f*cking outstanding. Not because I didn’t want to but because the author tells you so many meaningful things, you have to read them carefully to comprehend the importance of this story.

She says the right things, apologizes without meaning, and makes a token effort to change, but ultimately does nothing but take from the communities that she claims to try to help. Overall, as you might be able to tell from this review, I truly loved this graphic novel and cannot wait to dive into the novel soon because I am just that in love with the characters and themes in this story! I feel there is a balance to be made between formality and informality when writing and this book seemed to teeter between one extreme end and the other. Because I really, really liked this book and was so excited that it was going to be adapted into a Grafic novel. The best things here were the art style and representation— but that’s not enough to carry a graphic novel.She goes there to be the Pussy Lady’s intern, a very well loved white feminist lady who wrote Juliet’s favourite book, Raging Flower. Once she arrives, though, Juliet realizes that neither Harlowe, Portland, or herself are quite what she imagined. We can decide whether we want to love one person for life, find a good thing with someone that opens itself up to several other love things with other beautiful humans, or something else entirely.

but they all talk as if they're in a Portlandia sketch - it's all inner goddesses, your heart and your spirit, etc. She says she met Lainie in a Women’s Studies class, but she still knew virtually nothing about feminism, or the fallacies of the US government, at all. I'm pretty sure this wasn't the author's intentions, it was probably even a criticism more than anything else. And of course there is the beautiful art style, that I truly loved and that only added so much love for this graphic novel for me. It's too bad because the ideas really have potential--the general plot outline sounds just like the coming out / of age novels I love, the affectionate parodies of white feminism were spot-on (the excerpts from Raging Flower were fucking brilliant).

There are no answers or pathways—unlike Harlow Brisbane’s book, where tracking your menstrual moon cycle is the key to understanding the universe, and where womanhood is a wide expanse of expression only if you possess a working uterus—just methods of understanding. I’m a big graphic novel/comic book fan but I’m bad at keeping up with the interesting ones coming up so I’m really enjoying seeing all the queer storylines that are becoming available.