The United States is a country where over four percent of its citizens identify with the LGBTQ community. That’s more than the Russian, Chinese, and Swedish populations living in our country combined. With such a large group, it’s kind of surprising that we don’t know more about how LGBTQ community members feel and what they go through in everyday life. The Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin uses the first person perspective of Riley, a gender fluid high schooler, to shed light on this issue. Riley is starting fresh at a new high school and decides to start an online anonymous blog to vent their every day feelings and struggles. Riley’s congressman dad combined with the harassment from other students leads to internal and external conflicts throughout the story, but Riley always stays one step ahead. Throughout the book, we learn how far a little bit of kindness towards others goes, and how being different isn't always a bad thing. In the book, Riley describes being gender fluid, “It’s like I have a compass in my chest. But instead of north and south, the needle moves between masculine and feminine” (Garvin). While that may seem strange to many people, to me it makes perfect sense. Humans are incredibly complex creatures, so there's no way that all of us fit into perfectly binary sub-groups. We all have our own little quirks, and we all have our own internal compasases. This book made me realise just how big of an impact these issues can have on people. For Riley, this constant polarization is a major everyday struggle, leading to severe panic attacks and depression. This book challenges the way you feel and the way you think, revealing a whole new world to people like me who don’t have these experiences. When I first started reading, I thought the book felt really cheesy (one of Riley’s friends makes his introduction by bursting through the door and playing a crazy air guitar solo, eventually ending by sliding on his knees and breaking the invisible guitar on the ground) but by the third chapter I was surprised by how heart-felt it was. I was suddenly relating to these characters as if I was there with them, going through the same stuff. Seeing through Riley’s eyes sheds a whole new kind of light on these issues, provoking thought about how I affect others around me. Garvin uses the first person perspective beautifully in conjunction with his theme, proving that no matter how different we may be from each other, we are all still human. By Will S.
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AuthorSTenth grade students at Decorah High School share how they're reading outside of their own experiences and how it has changed them. Categories
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November 2022
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