A review by waxbiplane
Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera

5.0

This is an excellent example of fiction as empathy-creation-device. It is a QPOC primer without feeling like a checklist of qualities and experiences to check off. Juliet is a great character, and fun to hang out inside over the course of the book. You get the experience of folks of color dealing with white feminism as well as a good explanation of why people who are not white need to have spaces which are not white. It rarely (I think I counted 2-3 times) slips into didacticism, which for a super complicated subject like intersection feminism, is really impressive. It also manages to problematize all the different points of view regarding feminism, ending up (perhaps too neatly?) at a "we have to work together" vision of intersectionality. But it never feels forced, and characters make bad decisions, which make them compelling and maddening. Every 15 year old should read this book. I enjoyed reading it tremendously.