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 FinalistAn ALA Top Ten Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult ReadersA Rainbow Book List selectionRiley 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.
“A beautiful new addition to the queer YA canon.” —New York Times–bestselling author Robin Talley“Riley’s emotional life and personal growth shed welcome light on a hitherto obscure subject.” —*Booklist (starred review)“Both highly entertaining and highly necessary, Symptoms is the kind of book that makes you a better human for having read it.” —Dahlia Adler, author of Under the Lights