Gabby Rivera

Juliet comes out to her whole family the night before leaving to start a summer internship with legendary author Harlowe Brisbane, the ultimate authority on feminism, women's bodies, and other gay-sounding stuff. Harlow is sure to help her figure out this whole "Puerto Rican lesbian" thing. Except Harlowe's white. And from hippy Portland not the Bronx like Juliet. And she definitely doesn't have all the answers. Juliet realise she herself doesn’t know all the questions she needs to be asking.

This is a YA novel which deals with queerness, gender, BIPOC issues, privilege and how Juliet is figuring it out with guidance from those around her.

This would be a great book for a young queer kid or adult. And also a great work from a queer BIPOC voice. I found it interesting to see how Juliet at nineteen navigated her evolving understanding or race, gender, sexuality and expression (the scene in the bookshop… (mere)

Though Gabby Rivera started to find her feet in the latter six issues of America but it was too little, too late. Some of the try-hard slang was reduced, but I still felt like America was a little off.

To start with, the villain, Exterminatrix, despite a fun character design and camp villain theatrics was way too quickly revealed and dispatched with. There could have been a couple of strong issues dealing with speaking out on campus and being shut down, trying to fight against institutional power that can't just be punched and dispatched.

I was worried that I would find the constantly changing artists - sometimes even within one issue - distracting, but it wasn't as disjointed as I thought. It helped that the colour artists kept the colours uniform, bright and saturated, just the way I like it.

Things I did like:
- the colours
- my boy Prodigy getting some respect. Prodigy is such an under-appreciated member of the Young Avengers and I love him getting to shine in his own right
- Jen Bartel's art of Planeta Fuertona and America's birth… (mere)