Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin (Epub)

Description

A sharply honest and moving debut perfect for fans of The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Ask the Passengers.

Riley Cavanaugh is many things: Punk rock. Snarky. Rebellious. And gender fluid. Some days Riley identifies as a boy, and others as a girl. But Riley isn’t exactly out yet. And between starting a new school and having a congressman father running for reelection in über-conservative Orange County, the pressure—media and otherwise—is building up in Riley’s life.

On the advice of a therapist, Riley starts an anonymous blog to vent those pent-up feelings and tell the truth of what it’s really like to be a gender fluid teenager. But just as Riley’s starting to settle in at school—even developing feelings for a mysterious outcast—the blog goes viral, and an unnamed commenter discovers Riley’s real identity, threatening exposure. And Riley must make a choice: walk away from what the blog has created—a lifeline, new friends, a cause to believe in—or stand up, come out, and risk everything.

From debut author Jeff Garvin comes a powerful and uplifting portrait of a modern teen struggling with high school, relationships, and what it means to be a person.

User’s Reviews

From School Library Journal Gr 9 Up—After a more than unpleasant experience at a Catholic high school, Riley Cavanaugh, whose father is a conservative congressman, is looking for a fresh start at Park Hills High. However, when a new classmate spots Riley and asks, “Is that a girl, or a guy?” Riley quickly gets pegged as an “it.” Though the protagonist wakes up some mornings feeling more like a girl and other mornings feeling more like a boy and would prefer to dress in a manner that reflects this, Riley must present as androgynously as possible in order to avoid negative attention. Riley is genderfluid but must keep it a secret in order to keep up appearances for their father’s political campaign. Taking the suggestion of a therapist, Riley starts an anonymous blog about what it’s like to be genderfluid. The blog quickly accumulates followers. But when a reader discovers Riley’s identity and starts to make threats, Riley must decide if they are ready to come out as the blog’s author. Garvin is skilled at truly encapsulating the feeling of being completely without allies in high school. The isolation is palpable in every scene. Garvin’s strengths also lie in his ability not to reveal the assigned gender of Riley without turning it into some sort of trick or novelty. Riley is not just genderfluid: Riley is witty, has a charming sense of humor, is a skilled writer, and is totally capable of getting the girl. Very few YA titles have featured protagonists like Riley, who don’t fit into the black and white of the gender binary. VERDICT Recommended for any library that serves a teen population.—Ingrid Abrams, Town School Library, NY

Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ Actual rating 3.75 stars.This was a difficult book to read. Not because of its writing style or plot, but because of its content. Bullying is a big thing for me. I don’t like it and it triggers strong reactions in me. I experienced many of the challenges our protagonist Riley faced, and other challenges he faced in this story are completely alien to me. But the bullying and assault thing… I just wanted to grab a taser, jump into the world of ‘Symptoms of Being Human’ and zap all of those horrifically behaved teens. Such a satisfying image in my mind of those bullies twitching on the ground and wetting themselves *rubs my hands together in evil glee* How human beings can treat one another at times is simply unbelievable.This novel deals with some amazing issues around identity and orientation. Even themes of gender roles. I loved the philosophical discussion that ran throughout the course of the story. At times my head hurt for Riley and the struggles he faces. ‘Symptoms of Being Human’ has a great deal of information for any reader who relates to being in the grey parts of the gender spectrum, or whomever wants to learn more about the concept. It really was an eye opener. But I think that this aspect was part of the story’s drawback. Some of the narrative felt forced or guided by the hand of the author to illustrate an important aspect of being gender fluid. The novel gives full exposure to the gender expression dial, and as such, loses a touch of realism.As a former high school teacher and someone involved with the LGBTQIA+ community; having spent years at university studying psychology and using those tools in the workplace to help youth, the situations and topics in ‘Symptoms of Being Human’ are invaluable, but at times felt like tools to bring light to a perspective or issue. So it’s got me juxtaposed between applauding Jeff Garvin approaching this subject matter, and wincing at how some parts of the story don’t feel authentic to the narrative.I also didn’t get that emotional punch I was waiting for towards the end. Something about the conclusion felt somewhat… clinical rather than passionate.Riley’s arc over discovering who he is and coming out against adversity makes for an interesting read. I especially enjoyed how he made new ride-or-die friends in Solo and Bec. Their trio of friendship really drives this story.I also appreciated the roles Riley’s parents play, as well as that of Riley’s therapist. They all added support and safety for Riley to begin this journey of self-discovery that we don’t usually get to see in YA. Though I think the trend is starting to change as older opinions fall out of favour to be replaced by inclusive (woke) attitudes.I can’t say I got any surprises from this read. I predicted the storyline within the first five pages, but the beauty of ‘Symptoms of Being Human’ comes not from a derisive plot, but from the themes and content. It ‘opens up a conversation.’Jeff has some great wit in the narrative, and I found myself wishing for more. I also was hoping for more angst. Though he can really build the tension like nobody’s business, seriously, I felt my muscles coil up and they did not release until I finished the book. I don’t think I’ve experienced a read quite like this. So top notch in tension with his writing style, but a tad dry; I feel a bit more humour would have livened it up more. But who knows – that may have been intentional to highlight the seriousness of the themes posed in ‘Symptoms of Being Human.’Definitely something I’d happily recommend, I’m glad to have had the experience.

⭐ I bought this book for a 30 days of Pride book review project. This is that review.“The first thing you’re going to want to know about me is: Am I a boy, or am I a girl?” Our first glimpse into our POV character Riley’s mind is an observation, presented almost as an accusation. The answer to that question is, “Both or Neither.” Riley is gender fluid, and about to start an anonymous blog, on the advice of a therapist (Dr. Anne), to vent the pent up feelings that inevitably arise from that identity, while living in a very binary society, especially when you add high-school and a prominent political family into the mix.We get to ride around in Riley’s head, facing parents who just don’t get it, braving the first day transferring to a new school, and walking what is described as “The Gauntlet” through an unfriendly lunch area every day. The real and imagined judgements of the outside world rain down upon us. We meet other outcasts, such as Solo, the nerd turned jock, whose sheer size shifted his social standing, and the “mysterious” Bec, who Riley constantly tries to define as “friend” or “more-than-friend,” with all the requisite teenage angst and self-deprecation.We, as it turns out, have been invited to walk in on Riley at a very transformative and eventful time in life. In fact, though the story takes place over a really short span, maybe only a month or two, Riley has some life altering experiences in that time, some more traumatic than others.There was a lot to like about this book. Riley is a fully realized and relatable character, and a hopeful, anxious, flawed, but very human face for gender fluidity, an often misunderstood and still underrepresented demographic. Because non-binary gender is messy, complicated and controversial, it becomes hard to talk about, but there are many teenagers like Riley who NEED to talk about it, and need to see it being talked about… if nothing else to be reassured that it exists outside of their own heads, that it is real and happening, that they are not alone.Jeff Garvin also manages to write a very apt description of functioning with anxiety. His descriptions of Riley’s impending anxiety attacks, or of the low level buzz of daily anxiety, like a headful of wasps, was just very in tune with my own experiences of dealing with anxiety, being claustrophobic in a crowded room, being overwhelmed by sensory input when your anxiety level is high, like loud sounds or bright lights being almost too much to handle. It seemed to be written by someone who really understood what being (just barely) functionally anxious feels like.It is a book that is very much designed to address issues, but I didn’t feel like it forgot about its characters in the process… and (to directly contradict a few reviews that I skimmed after writing this) I never felt it lost the thread of story. Riley is a gender fluid teen in a world where that is not really very understood, so Riley spends a lot of time educating the reader on gender and gender politics, subtly and sometimes really not so subtly, but we are also learning about who Riley is as a human, more than as an example of someone gender fluid. In the end we get to find out, as Riley does, what kind of person Riley is going to be– seperate from labels like boy, girl, gay, straight, advocate… or victim. I was surprised so many people felt there was no story here. I feel, in a coming of age story, the character development is the story. So, maybe the plot wasn’t always in-your-face apparent, but I don’t think it is fair to say it was altogether absent.There were a few things that I did struggle with, though.Garvin makes a conscious choice to never reveal Riley’s sex or birth-assigned gender. The point, of course, is that it doesn’t matter because it is divorced from who Riley is. The character Riley is not a boy or a girl. There are no pronouns used. Nobody refers to Riley as the congressman’s son or daughter. When Riley is having moments of gender dysmorphia, or even of attraction to a crush, Riley’s inner monologue never mentions any body parts that might give anything away. Riley describes the gendered clothes that must be worn as the “campaign costume,” and there is never any detail about what they look like or what gender they are enforcing. There is a sort of defiance in this, mirroring and matching Riley’s own defiance and verbal insistence on more than one occasion that it doesn’t matter what genitalia Riley has. And it is of course none of anyone’s business… But there is also something calculated and false about the way it is concealed from the reader. We aren’t just a random observer on the street or an anonymous reader of Riley’s blog, we are supposed to be inside the character’s head and this piece of information, that Riley knows and is in fact struggling with, is just absent. For example, when Riley mentions feeling very feminine around Bec… something about Bec turns Riley’s “gender-dial” all the way to female…If Riley’s sex is male, I feel like, Riley is going to be aware of having a penis. To me, that seems like potentially a huge source of gender dysphoria. If Riley is feeling masculine, getting dressed in a way that doesn’t feel too feminine while having to deal with breasts that need flattened down or with menstruation… I feel like those things actually matter. Not revealing Riley’s physical sex or birth-assigned gender or the role Riley’s parents expect Riley to be performing in…it just almost feels like the author doesn’t trust us with the information, and at some points you can feel the intention in it. I understand why Garvin did it, but it was a stumbling block for me in connecting with the character.The other thing for me, which I am aware is petty, were just a couple of typos. I make typos you make typos. It happens…but a missing word or using a mistaken word pulls me out of the story for a minute, and then I have to try to reconnect. And typos in a published work, to me, just seem careless on the part of the editing and publishing teams.And this has nothing to do with anything… but my book has a weird “haircut.” The pages are not cut evenly in a section and stick out beyond the cover at an angle… literally like an asymmetrical haircut. Which isn’t really a negative or a positive, except the pages got all bent in shipping and it makes it hard to fit neatly on the bookshelf without dog-earring them further. It’s kind of a round peg in a square hole world situation… which I suppose is apt for the novel.Do I recommend this book? I do. It’s weird because scanning other reviews, my likes and dislikes seem to be backwards to the other reviewers, my stumbling block was their favourite feature. So, as with anything, it is simply a matter of taste.So, at last, let me throw this book on my two rating scales invented for this project.The first scale I’ve decided to dub the Queer Counterculture Visibility Scale. It measures how I personally feel this book shines a light on less visible members of the community.Riley is a white upper-middle-class teenager, so Garvin isn’t scoring high points right out of the gate, but a POV character that is gender fluid gets a lot of credit on my scale. Garvin also has a teensy little bit of diversity in his side characters. One of the first people Riley befriends is described as brown, and later as Samoan. Riley also interacts briefly with a variety of different transgendered and genderqueer characters. I’m going to weigh it in at: 4 out of 5 starsIf only because gender fluidity has been underrepresented, thus far.The second scale I’m just going to call the Genre Expectation scale, and it rates whether this book falls above, below, or pretty much bog-standard for expectations of the genre.This is a young adult, coming of age/ coming out story… and it does what it says on the tin. No genre bending revelations, or spectacular story twists. I think it’s a perfectly enjoyable example of its genre. 3 out of 5 stars.It met my expectations.

⭐ I don’t understand why anyone would dismiss a book because it’s YA. We were all teenagers, and in our minds, at least partially, that teenager still lives on. So I still appreciate a good coming of age story, or simply stories with young characters. It’s a painful, but also vivid time to be alive.With this book, I actually learned a few things. Being gender fluid is confusing enough for people experiencing it, so it’s nice to have it explained to those unfamiliar with the concept. Garvin does a good job of making Riley’s character easy to relate to, clearing out a path through the confusion and bullying and teen angst to empathy.One of the key passages that makes succinct sense: “The world isn’t binary. Everything isn’t black or white, yes or no. Sometimes it’s not a switch, it’s a dial. And it’s not even a dial you can get your hands on; it turns without your permission or approval.” That can apply to pretty much all sexuality.I’d subtract points for the story, which at times can be frustrating because very little happens at various points when Riley is spinning his/her wheels. But the conclusion is satisfying enough that I’d recommend this. And I don’t think this is a spoiler, for those wondering if Riley is a boy or a girl? None of yer damn business!

⭐ As someone genderfluid but with a background in gender studies, I found this book introductory in terms of gender, but in a much-needed way. The main character’s transition to a new school and growing understanding of their gender and their mental illness provided the perfect setting for a relatable yet educational read. I liked that readers became acquainted with gender fluidity and anxiety, but in the context of getting to know a human character. The school setting and straightforward writing style made the story all the more accessible. It was the perfect setting to be relatable to younger readers and familiar to older audiences—and even though it explained a lot of concepts that I was already familiar with, I still found something to gain in watching the protagonist learn how to be themself despite opposition. We need more books like this!

⭐ This. Book.It’s the first I’ve read with a gender fluid character as the front and center protagonist, and even as someone who feels like she has a fairly decent understanding of non binary identities, this book actually taught me a lot. I loved the decision to never reveal what gender Riley was assigned at birth (although honestly there was one part that almost jolted me out of the book since I really felt it did tell us) and it does such a great job of explaining anxiety and how attacks can form and present themselves, as well as how life can be a nonstop hell for people even when things seem to be okay on the outside. I’ll be checking out anything this author writes.

⭐ I had no idea gender fluid people exist. I am very much like Riley`s parents and this book gave me insight into a section of society of which I am ignorant. I want to understand `The Q` community and Mr. Garvin has crafted these characters in a poignant, tender, and very real manner. Admittedly, I was initially uncomfortable reading a book about the trans/gender fluid community, but the resounding message to bring open conversation to the forefront is so true. I may not understand completely, but I want to understand better and I do appreciate Riley`s explanation and willingness to cut us older folks a little slack on the learning curve.

⭐ I teach 8th grade English, and some of my students recommended this book to me. It’s the best book I read over the summer (and I read a lot!). I learned quite a bit about what it means and what it’s like to be genderfluid. The author did an amazing job keeping Riley’s biological sex hidden for the entire book through well-crafted sentences and gender-neutral word choices. This is the first book I recommended to my students this year, and I hope that many of them will read it to understand themselves and/or their peers better.

⭐ While I’d like to consider myself well-versed about the LGBTQ community, the truth is, I know very little about gender fluid or gender queer individuals. This book gave me a good starting baseline, on which to build my research.I enjoyed Riley, Solo, and Bec. I enjoyed the fact we never actually find out Riley’s biological sex…whether a boy or girl. That truly drives home the point the author is trying to make…Riley is neither, and both. I enjoyed the way the book utilized Riley’s blog to educate the readers about gender fluidity.Overall, a quick, informative, well-done read.

⭐ I enjoyed reading the book very much and found it both educational and entertaining. Jeff Garvin does a beautiful job of conveying character’s emotions, and the descriptions of setting put you in the place of the story but don’t get in the way. Park Hills high school feels like it could be my own, and the level of acceptance in that conservative environment is spot on.I am a teacher, and had a student come out to me as gender fluid last year. This story could basically have been hers/his – strict uniform school, other students making constant comments. While I did my best to be a safe listener and give that student the acceptance I was genuinely feeling, I didn’t have the vocabulary I maybe needed to say what I needed to say. It came across anyhow. We have a wonderful relationship. We’ve both moved to different schools but I wish we could read it together. This book would have helped us talk about so much more, and give that student a chance to say, “Yes, this is what I am feeling” or “No, it’s different for me because…..” It would have helped me then, and it has better prepared me for the next student who is brave/desperate enough to say something.I think this book is important. Thank you, Jeff Garvin, for writing it.

⭐ This book gave me a deeper understanding of what it means to be Gender Fluid. Among the many themes that are so well handled in this book, one is about how we find new beginnings. Riley like so many of us thinks he can change environments and effect change in others and in ourselves. Riley tries by changing schools. The kids at the new school aren’t all that different from kids at the old school. Riley effects a new beginning by being honest and telling who he is. To himself, to a friend, to his parents and finally to the world. His courage and fears are well told.

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