Symptoms of Being Human

by Jeff Garvin

A teenager reveals anxieties about personal identity issues in "one of the first YA books to deal with the complex issue of gender fluidity."* A Lambda Literary Award Finalist An ALA Top Ten Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers A Rainbow Book List selection 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.…