The Disability Book Archive

[ID: A book cover. The background is white. At the top of the cover, in the centre, a shape resembling short black hair, with a spiked fringe swept to the right. The title “Symptoms of Being Human” is immediately below this, lower left of the shape, with each word stacked on top of each other. All of the title is written in small purple capitals, except for “Human” which is written in small black capitals. In the centre of the cover, written vertically, the tag line “Boy or Girl? Yes.” in very small black capitals. The author’s name “Jeff Garvin” is written in the bottom right section of the cover in small green capitals. /end]

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Content Warning:

• Sexual Assault
• Bullying
• Transphobia
• Homophobia
• Attempted Suicide
• Suicidal Ideation

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Summary:

The first thing you’re going to want to know about me is: Am I a boy, or am I a girl?

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

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Notes:

There is an audiobook.

There is an ebook. There is a kindle edition.

Though this book follows the experiences of a genderfluid teenager, the author is himself a cisgender male. This has been a point of contention for some readers.

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Archivist Comments:

This book is understandably a bit divided in the reviews. Some people feel like certain aspects of the genderfluid experience, and gender dysphoria as a whole, are missed or don’t really come through in the narrative.

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