On top of all that, Juliet Takes a Breath also has themes of different kinds of romantic relationships and how self-love plays an important role in that.

And I loved Juliet, I loved how clueless she is about the LGBTQ community, about feminism, about herself, because we discover all these things with her. Harlowe is the feminist guru of the day, with her incredibly popular book about the Power of the Pussy, which is more of a rah-rah girl-power self-help book that blithely claims to be for every woman but is really for every white woman. 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. 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). The truly beautiful and unique thing about this book is the incredible visibility of queer spaces, and especially queer spaces for women of colour.One of the biggest themes of this graphic novel was white feminism and the saviour complex that white people have. When I first looked into picking up Juliet Takes a Breath, I came across a review that described this book as the female version of The Catcher in the Rye. She leaves her family, distance girlfriend, and life behind to assist this woman and learn more about herself.

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! Harlowe being so hippiedippy literally had me rolling my eyes every time she spok It tells the story of Juliet, who is from the Bronx, who heads to Portland for an internship and finds her community amongst fellow QTPOC people. 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. Yet I was constantly impressed that Rivera managed to make this journey so specific yet so universal.While Juliet’s mom struggles to understand why Juliet loves women, trying to find a reason or even a solution, Juliet struggles with the idea of not being accepted by her own family. Juliet goes through so much learning and growth, which is already awesome, but what makes it such a fun story is her voice. Wanting to learn more about herself, about feminism and social justice in a white supremacist culture. And Juliet is soo tongue tied over the cute girls and it was just sweet and not sexualised or anything but was just soft and realistic and I LOVED IT. Because I really, really liked this book and was so excited that it was going to be adapted into a Grafic novel.

So, like, I’m free but your whole entire life has been gutted and everyone you know is either dead or indebted to some gringo corporation? As Juliet sinks deeper into her life, however, she realizes that Harlowe is just like the project she sent Juliet to work on—pieces of paper scattered throughout, words that sound powerful but have lost their meaning or have no substance, disorganized and exploitative. I am all for more representation of minority groups, and I applaud every author and artist who tries to right this wrong, but sometimes I think faults in such works are overlooked. Like those archaic views are actually the same as understanding gender and the implications it decrees.How does it all come together, she wonders, the way you do when you’re first venturing out into the world. They fuck up, they say offensive shit, but most importantly their words are challenged and they learn to know and be better. It acts as an intro for those who don't know queer and feminist terminology, but also serves as a critique of the whiteness of those structures if you already do.