Read This Book…

Full disclosure: I have not read the original novel by Gabby Rivera but this graphic novel is incredibly good. It starts with a letter from our heroin, Juliet Milagros Palante to Harlowe Brisbane, the author of Raging Flower, a feminist book that Juliet is reading. In the letter, Juliet interrogates the author’s white feminism and asks if there is a place for her, a queer Puerto Rican teen from the Bronx. She hears that Harlowe is working on writing another book and offers her services as an intern to help inject more melanin into the content.

Three months later Juliet will be heading to Portland, Oregon to be Harlowe’s intern. But before she gets on the plane she is determined to come out to her family. They don’t know she’s a lesbian. Well, her little brother Melvin does. Juliet’s family doesn’t take her coming out very well and she heads off to Portland on a sour note. Juliet has a girlfriend, Lainie, who she is head over heels for but to an outsider Lainie just looks like a whole field full of red flags. Juliet gets to Portland and is starstruck by Harlowe. We quickly learn that Harlowe might be a bit too head-in-the-clouds-and-the-clouds-are-in-fairyland and also she is a mess. Again, lots of red flags here.

This story has so many layers. Yes, it’s about Juliet coming into her own but it’s also a story about queer people of color doing all kinds of groundwork and then a white queer woman taking the credit. It’s such an accurate portrayal of a queer white woman feeling guilty because she has privilege but then somehow making that the problem of the people of color in the queer community. It’s also a beautiful portrayal of the importance of queer people of color being in community with other queer people of color. This book is a story about Juliet finding her people and it’s amazing and beautiful and heartbreaking and really, really important.