Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin

★★★★

*** Warning: This review contains spoilers!! ***

CW/TW: assault, sexual assault

For those who might appreciate a heads-up, this book does include the slurs "dyke" and "faggot" directed at the main character.

What Loveless did in terms of helping me to understand aromanticism and asexuality, this book did in regards to gender fluidity. I can't speak to how authentic the portrayal of gender dysphoria is, but I'd definitely recommend both these books for adults and parents who want to better understand these concepts.

Interestingly, the author purposely withheld the main character Riley's assigned gender at birth. Admittedly, I was curious at first, especially because I figured even Riley's new classmates could find the answer, since whether Congressman Cavanaugh had a son or a daughter would be public information. But the lack of disclosure really drove home the point that it doesn't matter. Riley is a person, end of story. The book is written in the first person, so we never even see Riley's preferred pronouns; for this review, I'll use "they".

Unlike any other book I've ever read, this book offers some valuable mental health representation. Riley has a therapist, uses techniques taught to them by their therapist to cope with stress and anxiety throughout the day, and takes antidepressant and anti-anxiety medication.

I liked that more than once, the book presented one point of view, and then later on presented an opposing point of view. These differing perspectives showed how complex gender issues can be. For example, we know, of course, that Riley is frustrated when others try to put them into a "girl" box or "boy" box. Yet, when Riley starts at a new school, every new person they meet is identified as a "girl" or "boy". It seemed kind of hypocritical! Eventually, Riley acknowledges their own tendency to put people into gender boxes, and they even feel a sense of shame for having misjudged other people's gender identity. (p. 154)

I also really appreciated that the bullies in this book are not entirely one-dimensional. We don't get to know their motivations explicitly, but it's made clear that they aren't just evil, they have complex home lives, too, and other contributing factors that influence their thinking and behavior.

As much as I got out of this book, I can't help but feel it was lacking in two specific ways. When I think about gender identity, the first two things that come to mind are bathrooms and pronouns. Yet, this book did not address either of these issues. It just seemed to me that figuring out which bathroom to use, and thinking about how certain pronouns make them feel, would be a significant part of Riley's experience as a gender fluid person, and I wonder if not discussing these matters was a missed opportunity.

The ending was satisfying, yet it also felt like there were too many loose ends. Solo said the entire football team had Riley's back, but how did that come to be, when they had always deferred to Vickers as their leader? What kind of consequences do Vickers and Sierra have to face, and how are they viewed by their peers if/when their actions become public knowledge? What happens with Erik and his hopes of joining the football team?

Finally, there was one minor detail that just didn't sit right with me. At one point, while spiraling out of control, Riley destroyed someone else's belongings, and didn't apologize. (p. 290) I get that Riley was destructive in a kind of unconscious or subconscious way - they're not willfully causing damage with any specific purpose - and we know that they've damaged their own property before, too. But taking anger out on someone else's things feels like it crosses a very specific boundary. The items weren't important, and in the same scene, Riley did apologize for saying hurtful things and the friendship is intact, but I would have liked to see an apology for their actions, as well as their words.