Symptoms Of Being Human Analysis

“People do judge books by their covers; it’s human nature. They react to the way you look before they hear a single word that comes out of your mouth.” -Jeff Garvin In Symptoms of Being Human, by Jeff Garvin, Riley Cavanaugh, a gender fluid teen, struggles with societal norms and the difficulty of fitting in. When Riley starts at a new school, they think everything would be different and the students would be more open minded about being gender fluid. But inevitably, the students take one look at Riley and already have come to their own conclusions without even getting to know them. “The first thing you’re going to want to know about me is: Am I a boy, or am I a girl?”(1). Through his character Riley Cavanaugh, Jeff Garvin shows just how essential it is for us to not “judge a book by its cover”, and instead take the time to get to know someone before you come to any conclusions about them. Judging based on appearances is almost instinct. No matter how careful an individual is, for even a split second, one can make a decision based on what’s in front of them. “Well...I thought I met a boy. Actually, I met a girl. That’s right: I got all prematurely gender-assigny…
Towards the end of the book, Riley is still learning how to put an end to judging people. But, whether they know it or not, they are slowly training themselves to associate judging with wrongdoing. Soon enough, they learn to look at people as a human being, not as a “boy” or a “girl”. In closing, judging a book by its cover is not always easy to prevent. But learning how it might hurt others, or how hurt you feel when you are on the receiving end, is one step in the right direction towards caring more about other people’s feelings. Even though you may not voice your opinion aloud, one can never be too certain the other person is oblivious to what is going on inside your