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A review by claryperezv
Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera
3.0
I'm always happy to read books about queer latinas. I loved being part of Juliet's self discovery journey although I was a bit dissapointed at Harlow's ending but I guess that's why the phrase "never meet your idols" exists. One character that stood out to me a lot was her cousin Ava and I almost wish the story was centered around her teaching Juliet how to live as a queer latina like Ava and her mom do, this would also help tie the storyline to Juliet's parents, specially her mom, we see her trying to understand queerness in the end but we don't get the see the progress she does just like Juliet who doesn't get to live that until her aunt tells her to ask.
"Your one job is to accept what a person feels comfortable sharing about themselves. No one owes you info on their gender, body parts or sexuality" "Womanhood is radical enough for anyone who dares to claim it" (forever using that against transphobes)
"How am I supposed to come out and deal with everyone's sadness" "What kind of prayer made parents the ppl you need them to be" "I know you better than you think I do"
I don't know how to feel about the mom's part in this story, I guess I don't understand her and after being homophobic to both her daughter and sister and immediately be forgiven in the end I don't understand how we got there?
the way the mom just "apologized" without apologizing looked a little too similar too the way harlow did it, and she was not fully forgiven for it while the mom was?
Something that bothered me from the book, and I guess from life in general is how judgemental even the more open minded people are, we see it with Harlow's racism but we also see it with Juliet when she firsts arrives to Portland. She doesn't understand people that are different than her, BUT I do appreciate that she keeps the judgement to herself instead of acting on it. Still, I think life would be so much easier if we all accepted the fact that we are all humans here living in a floating rock and life shouldn't be this complicated.
The part where she says "Maybe America just swallowed sll of us including our stories and spat out whatever it wanted us to remember", is so real and it resonates a lot with this book to me because as latina as Juliet is, her story doesn't really feel the same as it would feel if it was about someone LIVING and growing up queer in latam.
"Your one job is to accept what a person feels comfortable sharing about themselves. No one owes you info on their gender, body parts or sexuality" "Womanhood is radical enough for anyone who dares to claim it" (forever using that against transphobes)
"How am I supposed to come out and deal with everyone's sadness" "What kind of prayer made parents the ppl you need them to be" "I know you better than you think I do"
I don't know how to feel about the mom's part in this story, I guess I don't understand her and after being homophobic to both her daughter and sister and immediately be forgiven in the end I don't understand how we got there?
the way the mom just "apologized" without apologizing looked a little too similar too the way harlow did it, and she was not fully forgiven for it while the mom was?
Something that bothered me from the book, and I guess from life in general is how judgemental even the more open minded people are, we see it with Harlow's racism but we also see it with Juliet when she firsts arrives to Portland. She doesn't understand people that are different than her, BUT I do appreciate that she keeps the judgement to herself instead of acting on it. Still, I think life would be so much easier if we all accepted the fact that we are all humans here living in a floating rock and life shouldn't be this complicated.
The part where she says "Maybe America just swallowed sll of us including our stories and spat out whatever it wanted us to remember", is so real and it resonates a lot with this book to me because as latina as Juliet is, her story doesn't really feel the same as it would feel if it was about someone LIVING and growing up queer in latam.