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Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'
Juliet Takes a Breath: The Graphic Novel by Gabby Rivera
23 reviews
caylac's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Sexual content
outsidestar's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
"How do you tell the people who breathed you into existence that you're the opposite of everything they want you to be?"
First things first, this is a graphic novel adaptation and I have not read the original book, so don't know how well it reflects the original story. That being said, I loved this.
Juliet Takes a Breath is a delightful coming-of-age and finding-your-place-in-the-world story. We follow Juliet, a Puerto Rican lesbian living in the Bronx, as she comes out to her family before leaving for an internship in Portland. Then comes a lot of learning about herself and celebrating who she is, a lot of girlfriend drama and meeting people who will open her eyes to how things can and should be.
Being a graphic novel, this is a very light read, but it still addresses very important topics, like dealing with your family's reaction to you being gay, racism, white privileges, self-love, or self-acceptance.
Also, the art style is gorgeous and the color palette is lovely, although it did sometimes make scenes (and even characters) blend together. I appreciated that the characters weren't supermodel-like, since it radiated huge self-love vibes.
A big thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a digital copy in exchange of an honest and voluntary review.
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Homophobia and Sexual content
summerb's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Moderate: Sexual content
violet_pages's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Moderate: Homophobia, Racism, Sexual assault, and Sexual content
Minor: Infidelity, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, and Transphobia
macsenbesemer's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Moderate: Homophobia, Racism, Sexual assault, and Sexual content
Minor: Infidelity and Misogyny
alisazhup's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I loved the complicated romantic polyamorous relationship between Maxine and Harlowe, so I was sad that in this version they were already broken up.
Juliet's mom was way to quick to change her mind about everything. There was no real leading up to it.
We never fully resolved the situation with Lainie.
What happened to Juliet and Kira's relationship after Juliet went home in this version?
Harlowe had maybe only 1 redeemable scene in this one. In the original you wanted to love her. Here she was sort of dislikable from the start.
In the original Maxine tells Juliet that there was nothing stopping her from speaking up for herself. I think that was an important piece as well and I wish it was included.
Juliet never answers the question about why she came to Portland in the first place.
Harlowe's transphobic belief that genitals = womanhood is never addressed.
We only get one scene with Harlowe after the situation at the reading. They needed to talk more about what happened, and the tense walk up to the river with Harlowe and Juliet was EVERYTHING.
The ending fell short too! The epilogue was fine. But originally Juliet struggled against the current until finally relaxing which was beautiful and symbolic.
I gave the original three stars. I also give this one three stars but for entirely different reasons. If you haven't read the original, I think you'll enjoy this. But if you have, you might feel like this one is rushed.
Graphic: Infidelity, Racism, Sexual content, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Homophobia
Minor: Panic attacks/disorders
Asthma attacks, cheatingreading_between_the_trees's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Biphobia, Body shaming, Homophobia, Infidelity, Racism, Sexism, Sexual assault, and Sexual content
kirby's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Homophobia, Racism, and Sexism
Moderate: Biphobia, Sexual assault, and Sexual content
Minor: Infidelity
_cheshirecxt's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
I started reading it and just flew to the end. In this graphic novel, we meet wonderful characters as well as not so wonderful ones. The growth seen in Juliet is really inspiring and living her experience in Portland makes me want to pick the novel right after writing this review.
There were very important lessons in this graphic novel which makes me want to praise it even more.
The reason I'm not giving it 5 stars is that, despite having loved most of the characters in this graphic novel, I felt that I didn't get to know them completely.
But still, I would completely recommend Juliet takes a breath.
Moderate: Racism and Sexual content
Minor: Homophobia
mollyrose's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Moderate: Biphobia, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Transphobia