To listen to this broadcast, click here: http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=762046606 AUDIE CORNISH: Gabby Rivera writes strong Latina characters, from the queer Marvel superhero America Chavez to the Puerto Rican protagonist in [...]

Centro Journal. Summer2018, Vol. 30 Issue 2, p324-346. 23p. Gabby Rivera's Juliet Takes a Breath (2016) is only the second coming-of-age lesbian novel written by a Puerto Rican in the diaspora. A signifcant development within the Young Adult genre, I propose that the book functions as a symbolic continuation to Magali García Ramis's Felices días, tío Sergio, and its main character, Lidia, a young girl who has been read as "proto-lesbian" (La Fountain-Stokes). Similarly, I suggest that Rivera's work indirectly converses with other Puerto Rican literary texts and activist icons produced in the diaspora through Juliet's journey to achieve socio-political awareness.

Advocate. Apr/May2020, IJuliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera follows a young Puerto Rican lesbian living in the Bronx as she takes her first leap into adulthood. She just came out of the closet to her family, and it didn't turn out as well as she had hoped. Luckily for Juliet, though, she is leaving the next day on a plane to Portland, where she is set to spend the summer as an intern with legendary feminist author (and her personal hero) Harlowe Brisbane. It all sounds perfect and Juliet hopes life will finally start making sense, except Brisbane doesn't have any answers and Juliet realizes she has to come to terms with her own identity before tackling the questions of her life. (Dial Books)