The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Rivera, Gabby. Juliet Takes a Breath. Penguin Random House, 2019.

Rivera's novel is divided into 26 chapters divided into four sections, as well as a prologue and epilogue. Each section depicts a significant geographic change in the story line. Juliet, a 19-year-old Latina woman from the Bronx, is the novel's first-person narrator.

Juliet begins the novel in the Bronx where she is getting ready to leave for her summer internship in Portland, Oregon. She will be interning with Harlowe Brisbane, a white feminist author who wrote Raging Flower: Empowering Your Pussy by Empowering Your Mind, a book that has changed Juliet's life. Before leaving the Bronx, Juliet comes out to her Latino family at the family's goodbye dinner, and tells them about her girlfriend, Lainie. The news is not received well, particularly by her mother, and Juliet leaves for the internship upset and feeling disconnected.

Arriving in Portland, Juliet is met by a thoroughly different hippie culture, which is wholeheartedly embraced and lived by Harlowe. As Juliet adapts to this culture, she also starts to learn a great deal about queer culture, racial politics, polyamory, and the aspects of US history not usually taught in American high schools. As she experiences all these new ideas and ways of life, Juliet longs for the women who are missing in her life, namely her mother, with whom her relationship is still strained, and her girlfriend, who has been uncommunicative during her own internship in Washington, DC.

For her internship work, Harlowe gives Juliet names of women who are largely unacknowledged in history, asking her to research them. Juliet is also tasked with helping Harlowe for a large upcoming book reading. Juliet spends a great deal of time at the library carrying out this research, and while there, meets librarian Kira, who she develops a flirtation with despite still having a girlfriend. One day, Juliet comes home to a letter from Lainie that says she has fallen in love with someone else. Juliet is brokenhearted and momentarily flattened by the news. However, she pulls herself back up with the help of Harlowe and her cousin Ava, in Miami, and ends up dating and falling in love with Kira.

Juliet learns more about racial politics and the nuances of different types of feminism throughout her internship, particularly in observing the relationship between Harlowe and her partner, Maxine, a Black woman. Maxine and Harlowe have some clashes around Maxine being a black woman and Harlowe trying to be a politically correct white woman, but instead being rather insulting and demeaning. Juliet develops a comfortable relationship with Maxine in which she can ask questions about race and feminism in an open way, which heavily influences her thinking throughout the summer.

Everything comes to a head the day of Harlowe's reading. By this time, Juliet has reached a point of truly loving Harlowe like family despite her flaws. However, when Harlowe is put on the spot during the Q&A period about whether her work reaches people of color, Harlowe holds Juliet up as a poor, Latina girl who has fought her way out of poverty and violence to intern with her. Juliet is very insulted and rushes out of the reading, immediately booking a ticket to Miami to visit Ava for the weekend.

In Miami, Juliet talks to Ava about some of the concepts she has been learning about, particularly around gender identity. Ava is someone Juliet looks up to, and Ava speaks to her openly and frankly, challenging her to question societal ideas and stereotypes more than she already does. Juliet's aunt tells Juliet that her mother is trying to understand what she is going through, and to trust her more. Ava takes Juliet to a party for queer people of color only, and it is a transformative experience for Juliet. She sees a rainbow of gender identities openly expressed and accepted at the party. She takes the opportunity to get a "dyke haircut" at the party as a visual representation of the openness she feels about her own dyke identity.

When Juliet returns to Portland to finish her internship, Harlowe avoids talking about what happened at the reading, instead focusing on the fact that Maxine has left her after the reading. Instead, she offers Juliet a free acupuncture session through her friend as a means of amends. Juliet feels like it is not enough, and eventually blows up at Harlowe about her not knowing anything about how she is feeling. Harlowe briefly apologizes, but it is truncated. Juliet speaks with her mother, who reminds her to stay true to herself and her story, that only she can change her own world.

The last day of her internship, Juliet goes with Harlowe, Maxine and other women for a cleansing ritual, i.e. riding down a river on the hottest day of the year. As she and Harlowe hike together, Juliet realizes she forgot her inhaler and starts to panic, fearful about having an asthma attack. Harlowe downplays it, infuriating Juliet, who finally feels the freedom to tell Harlowe exactly how hurt and angry she is at her. They have it out, with Harlowe admitting that she is a racist, that all American white people are in some ways. When Juliet rides the river down after the conversation, she feels free, that she has let go of her fear which has been holding her back. She realizes that she needs to move forward in her life with confidence in herself and her story. At the end of the novel, Juliet returns home to her family in the Bronx. Soon after, she writes herself a letter about the lessons she has learned throughout the summer.