Reviews with content warning for Stalking - Symptoms of Being Human

As a genderfluid person, it was only a matter of time before I got around to reading this book. Riley's experience of gender is a bit different to my own, but their blog entries were so relatable that I was hooked from the first one.

This is a difficult read peppered with bullying, transphobia, and homophobia. It deals with anxiety, panic attacks, gender dysphoria, and sexual assault. But under it all, there is an undertone of hopefulness, a focus on friendship, finding support and community, growth, self-confidence, and finding the courage to use our voices and our platforms to speak up for others.

The author made an interesting choice in never bringing up Riley's sex assigned at birth and avoiding pronouns for them altogether. I'm divided on that decision, because while on the one hand it doesn't matter, in the still very binary world we live in, it matters to most people. Most of us living beyond the binary don't have the advantage of looking so androgynous everyone wonders if we are a boy or a girl. We are instantly read as our sex assigned at birth and misgendered on a daily basis no matter now we present ourselves. Most of us have traditional gendered names, and changing that, even as a nickname, provokes unwelcome questions when we are still closeted. This approach by the author may be an attempt to make Riley more broadly relatable, but it fails to deal with these real issues. That said, given how the author handled the genderqueer character at the Q, calling them "he or she" I assume gender neutral pronouns were something he had no knowledge of when writing this book. Clearly, he needed to do more research.

Despite these issues, I do think there is good to be gleaned from this book. I would recommend looking at reviews and trigger warnings first though, because to say that this book isn't for everyone is putting it lightly.

Content Warnings

brookey8888's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Wow. What a important story. It is very hard to read at times, but there are a lot of light moments as well. I really loved Riley as our character. They were just very relatable in many ways like being awkward. I thought the friendships and the family relationships were so important. I learned a lot and think other people will as well. Definitely look up trigger warnings.

Content Warnings