Juliet Takes a Breath Review — Is It Worth Reading?

Updated on October 9, 2026

Verdict: A loud, funny, big-hearted queer Latina coming-of-age novel with one of the best narrating voices in sapphic YA, held back by stretches that read like a Queer 101 syllabus and a romance that stays firmly in the side plot.

Best for: Readers who want a character-driven summer of self-discovery about race, feminism and coming out, and who are happy for the love story to be a warm subplot rather than the engine.

Heat level: ★★☆☆☆ (2/5 — behind closed doors)

Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5 — a 4.15 Goodreads average across 17,343 ratings, with a vocal minority who found it a lecture)

Tropes: Coming of age, queer awakening, coming out to family, first love, mentor who disappoints, found family, fish out of water, summer internship, intersectional feminism, new-adult heroine.

Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera is a standalone queer coming-of-age novel, first published by the small press Riverdale Avenue Books in 2016 and reissued by Dial Books in 2019, that sends a nineteen-year-old Puerto Rican lesbian from the Bronx to Portland, Oregon for a summer internship with the white feminist author whose book changed her life — and lets the gap between the woman on the page and the woman in the house do the work. It sits on our list of the best sapphic books of all time, and it belongs in the character-driven fiction end of the shelf rather than the romance end.

It holds a 4.15 average across 17,343 Goodreads ratings, a 4.17 on StoryGraph with a did-not-finish rate of just 2%, and a shelf of praise that runs from School Library Journal and Publishers Weekly to Roxane Gay and Elizabeth Acevedo. The low-star reviews are few, but they are remarkably consistent about what bothered them. Both halves of that picture are worth understanding before you start.

What Is Juliet Takes a Breath About?

Juliet Takes a Breath is young adult fiction that reads closer to new adult — Juliet is in college, Dial shelves it for fourteen and up, and several reviewers note that her age and freedom make it feel older than most YA. It is a contemporary sapphic novel, and it is about identity before it is about love: what it means to be queer, Puerto Rican, chubby, brown and from the Bronx in rooms that were not built with you in mind.

Juliet arrives with a political vocabulary borrowed almost entirely from one book, a girlfriend back home, and a mother who has stopped speaking to her through anything but a closed door. Harlowe Brisbane, the author she idolises, arrives with a life full of polyamory, weed and good intentions — and a blind spot about race that Juliet does not yet have the words to name. The whole book is Juliet’s first-person voice, so you get every hope, embarrassment and swear word unfiltered, and that voice is exactly what readers fall for.

What Makes This Queer Latina Coming-of-Age Novel Work

Juliet’s voice: The most-praised element by a distance. Reviewers call her funny, wry, nerdy and raw, and Amazon’s review summary lands on the same thing — a strong, sassy voice that resonates.
The white-feminism critique: Harlowe is written to be cringe on purpose, and readers who stick with her say the book’s willingness to call her out, again and again, is its sharpest move.
Character over plot: On StoryGraph 82% of readers call it character-driven and 94% say the character development is strong, which is about as unanimous as that platform gets.
A queer world, not a queer scene: Portland gives Juliet a whole ecosystem of queer and trans people, women of colour, librarians and writers, and reviewers praise how constant that environment is rather than confined to one chapter.
Family: The coming-out fallout with her mother is the emotional spine, and it is the thread readers most often say made them cry.

Book Synopsis

Juliet Milagros Palante has done the hardest thing she can think of. The night before she leaves New York, she tells her family she is gay, and the reaction is not the one she hoped for. Her mother retreats behind a closed door. Juliet gets on a plane anyway, because months ago she wrote a letter to Harlowe Brisbane — author of the feminist self-help book that rewired her brain — and Harlowe wrote back offering her a summer internship.

Portland is a different planet. Harlowe’s house is full of weed, open relationships and women who ask Juliet for her pronouns. Juliet’s job is to help research Harlowe’s next book, which means long days in the library, where a motorcycle-riding librarian named Kira starts making the research considerably more interesting. Meanwhile Juliet’s girlfriend is a phone call away and that relationship is less steady than Juliet thinks, and every chapter opens with an excerpt from Harlowe’s book that sounds a little different each time Juliet reads it.

The longer she stays, the more Juliet notices what Harlowe’s feminism leaves out — people who look like her, families like hers, histories like hers — and the more she wonders whether she came to Portland to find herself or to hide from the Bronx. When the woman who gave her a language for her own body turns out to have limits, Juliet has to decide what she keeps, what she lets go, and what she needs to say out loud.

My Review

Juliet is the reason to read this book, and I want to say that plainly because most of the arguments about it are about everything around her. Rivera gives her a narrating voice that is funny, profane, self-mocking and tender in the same breath — a girl who can call herself ferocious on one page and come apart over a phone call from home on the next — and it holds for the whole novel. The reader reviews keep reaching for the same words: loud, honest, alive. I agree with all of them.

The second real strength is Harlowe. It would have been easy to write the disappointing mentor as a villain; Rivera writes her as a kind, generous, oblivious woman whose book genuinely helped Juliet and whose worldview genuinely cannot hold her. The excerpts from Harlowe’s book that open each chapter are a clever structural choice — even the harshest two-star reviewer I found calls them brilliant parody — and they let the critique of white feminism build without a single speech about it.

Where it struggles is the other kind of speech. The single most repeated criticism in the reviews is that long stretches read like a Queer 101 primer: characters explain pronouns, privilege, safe spaces and polyamory to Juliet, and by extension to you, in dialogue that exists to teach. Several readers who liked the book still call it preachy or didactic in places, and the harshest reviews call it telling rather than showing. Around that sit the structural notes — there is not much plot, which StoryGraph’s 82% character-driven split confirms; the stream-of-consciousness style is not for everyone; and a few side characters stay sketches.

One expectation to reset, especially on a romance site: this is not a romance. Kira is lovely and the flirtation is sweet, but it is a subplot, and the relationship with the girlfriend back home is handled in a way at least two reviewers found frustrating. If a love story is what drew you, calibrate; if you wanted a book about becoming yourself, this is exactly that.

My honest note: A five-star voice inside a four-star novel that sometimes stops to deliver the lecture it has already dramatised. If didactic dialogue sinks a book for you, it will cost you; if you can hear it as a nineteen-year-old’s education in real time, Juliet is worth every page.

Element	In Juliet Takes a Breath
Central relationship	Juliet Palante & Kira — Bronx college student and Portland librarian; a sweet first-love subplot
Core tropes	Coming of age, queer awakening, coming out to family, mentor who disappoints, found family, summer internship
Setting	The Bronx and Portland, Oregon, over one summer internship
Heat level	2/5 — behind closed doors
Series	Standalone; adapted as a graphic novel by BOOM! Studios in 2020
Content notes	Racism, homophobia and lesbophobia, sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual content, drug use, transphobia, pregnancy, cheating

How Spicy Is Juliet Takes a Breath?

A 2/5. romance.io lists it with a steam level of 2 — “behind closed doors” — across 49 ratings, and that matches what readers describe: the book is frank about bodies, desire and sex in conversation, and Juliet’s narration swears freely, but the intimate scenes themselves are not explicit. StoryGraph users flag sexual content at a moderate level, which fits a YA book with a new-adult heroine.

The element worth knowing in advance is the tone rather than the heat: the language is raw, the politics are front and centre, and drug use is casual in Harlowe’s circle. No reviewer I found flags explicit on-page sex. If you want sapphic YA in the same closed-door band, Annie on My Mind sits at the same 2/5, and You Should See Me in a Crown keeps it to kisses.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you read for voice above everything, you want a queer Latina heroine written from the inside, you enjoy books that interrogate white feminism and queer spaces, and you are happy with a character-driven summer instead of a tight plot.

You may want to skip it if: didactic dialogue pulls you out of a story, you need a plot that moves, you came for a romance that takes centre stage, or constant swearing and explicit political vocabulary are not your thing.

In short: an unforgettable narrator and a sharp idea, delivered with a teaching streak that will either move you or wear on you.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (October 2026)

This is not a book having a moment — it is a book that has quietly become a canon title. It started at a small Bronx press in 2016, landed on the American Library Association’s Amelia Bloomer List in 2017, and was reissued by Dial in 2019, when it collected a People Best Book of Fall pick, reviews in School Library Journal and Publishers Weekly, and blurbs from Roxane Gay, Elizabeth Acevedo and Malinda Lo. Between the two editions, Rivera wrote Marvel’s America series. The live conversation now runs through two channels: school book-ban lists, where it appears repeatedly (tracker counts vary widely, from five documented instances to more than thirty), and a modest BookTok presence — the main hashtag sits in the tens of thousands of views, driven by individual readers rather than any viral video. Reddit could not be checked from this environment, so I cannot report on it either way.

The audiobook is worth knowing about: it is narrated by Gabby Rivera herself for Audible Studios, runs 8 hours 54 minutes, and was released in April 2021. I found little listener commentary on the narration specifically, but an author reading her own semi-autobiographical novel is a real draw.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): Juliet, first and most consistently — “voice” is the recurring word, followed by funny, raw and honest. Then the critique of white feminism, which readers praise for calling out Harlowe every single time rather than letting her off the hook. The family storyline draws tears, the all-queer Portland world is described as the supportive environment readers wished they had at nineteen, and a surprising number of reviewers say plainly that they needed this book when they were younger. School Library Journal’s verdict is that teens will want to fight for social justice after reading it, which is also the ambition readers credit it with.

What readers argue about and complain about: The teaching tone, above everything. Roughly a quarter of the reviews I sampled use some version of preachy, didactic or Queer 101, including readers who rated it four stars; the harshest one-star review calls it a Tumblr education turned into a novel. Second: plot, or the lack of it — readers who love it warn you it is plotless, and readers who do not love it say that is why they were bored. Third: Harlowe, who is a deliberate irritant but a real one; at least one reviewer nearly quit after chapter two because of her. Beyond that, a few readers dislike the stream-of-consciousness style, and at least two object to how the book frames the girlfriend back home and the cheating storyline. The trade reviews — Publishers Weekly praises the expansive prose and the mixed-form structure — do not mention the didactic complaint at all, and that is the gap worth noticing. Readers genuinely split on the vocabulary lessons: for some they are the point, for others they are the flaw.

The standalone question worth asking first: it is a single, complete novel and needs nothing else. Its natural companion is the 2020 graphic-novel adaptation from BOOM! Studios, illustrated by Celia Moscote, which holds a 4.04 average across roughly 3,500 Goodreads ratings and was a finalist for a 2021 Prism Award — a slightly lower score, and a slimmer, more visual way into the same story.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Juliet Takes a Breath a romance?

Not primarily. It is a queer coming-of-age novel about identity, family and feminism, with a sweet sapphic love interest in Kira as a subplot. Readers who pick it up for the romance tend to find it thinner than they expected.

How spicy is Juliet Takes a Breath?

A 2/5. romance.io rates it “behind closed doors,” and the book is frank in conversation about sex and bodies without explicit on-page scenes. The language is strong throughout.

Is Juliet Takes a Breath YA or adult?

It is published as young adult for ages fourteen and up, but Juliet is a nineteen-year-old college student and many readers describe it as closer to new adult. It works for older teens and adults alike.

Is there an audiobook of Juliet Takes a Breath?

Yes. Gabby Rivera narrates it herself for Audible Studios; it runs 8 hours 54 minutes and was released in April 2021.

Is there a graphic novel version?

Yes. BOOM! Studios published a graphic-novel adaptation in 2020, illustrated by Celia Moscote. It holds a 4.04 Goodreads average and was a 2021 Prism Award finalist.

If You Loved Juliet Takes a Breath, Read These Next

For the foundational version of a girl discovering herself and paying for it at home, Annie on My Mind is the classic Juliet’s story is in conversation with, at the same closed-door heat. If the voice and the joy are the draw, You Should See Me in a Crown gives a Black queer heroine the same funny, big-hearted narration with more romance in the mix. And for queer community and a complicated family legacy in a contemporary YA frame, This Must Be the Place is the closest match in tone.

For more in this register, browse our lesbian YA books guide or the full Book Reviews collection.

The Bottom Line

Juliet Takes a Breath is a book whose heart is bigger than its structure. Juliet’s voice is one of the most alive in queer YA, the takedown of well-meaning white feminism is sharp and funny, and the family story lands hard. It is also light on plot, prone to stopping for a vocabulary lesson, and only a romance in the margins. Whether that trade works depends on how you feel about a novel that wants to teach you something — but the reader who meets Juliet on her terms gets a warm, messy, genuinely formative summer. Check Juliet Takes a Breath on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, Juliet Takes a Breath ranks as a modern-canon queer Latina coming-of-age novel — voice-driven and generous, held back by a teaching streak and a light plot, and best approached for Juliet and her summer of self-discovery rather than for the romance.