ARC Review: Symptoms of Being Human

12:00 AM Serena 11 Comments

Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin
Publication Date: February 2nd, 2016
Format/Source: eARC from Edelweiss. Thanks to EW and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5 stars
Part of a series? Nope!

The first thing you’re going to want to know about me is: Am I a boy, or am I a girl?

Riley Cavanaugh is many things: Punk rock. Snarky. Rebellious. And gender fluid. Some days Riley identifies as a boy, and others as a girl. The thing is . . . Riley isn’t exactly out yet. And between starting a new school and having a congressman father running for reelection in uber-conservative Orange County, the pressure—media and otherwise—is building up in Riley’s so-called “normal” 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. 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.

*Trigger warning and spoiler alert. Also: though Riley doesn't use pronouns in SoBH, Jeff said they/them pronouns are accurate for reviewing purposes.*

“Anyway, it's not that simple. The world isn't binary. Everything isn't black or white, yes or no. Sometimes it's not a switch, it's a dial. And it's not even a dial you can get your hands on; it turns without your permission or approval.” -Symptoms of Being Human

Once and a while, I'll read a book that makes me stop and really think. It doesn't happen very often, but it happened recently. And the book that did it for me was Symptoms of Being Human.

Symptoms of Being Human follows Riley, a gender fluid teenager, who is trying to maneuver through life. I've never read a novel with a gender fluid MC before, so I jumped at the chance to read this one early because I'm all about diverse narratives. It was every bit the learning experience I hoped it would be and so much more.

Riley’s struggles as a gender fluid teen are written so vividly. They deal with the issue of keeping their identity a secret from their family and peers. They deal with anxiety and depression. They deal with bullying that is so reflective of what happens to members of the LGBTQ+ community around the world that made my heart ache. I both empathized with and loved Riley. Their strength and drive to want to help others though they had their own problems was admirable, as was their ability to get back up again after they had been wronged and violated. Riley is amazing.

Riley also had people in their life who offered support, which was so amazing to read. The support group and therapy session scenes were some of my favorites because I loved that it endorsed finding a safe space to talk about your struggles instead of internalizing them. Riley’s parents tried their best to understand and support them. And Riley’s two wonderful friends, Solo, whose obsession with Star Wars made me smile, and Bec, who genuinely cared about them. It was refreshing and wonderful.

Symptoms of Being Human, though difficult to swallow at times because of the harsh realities it portrays, is an important novel about love and life and identity that everyone should read and allow themselves to learn from. It's honest and raw and, at times, absolutely delightful. Seriously, go pick this up.

11 comments:

Guest Post: Lisa Maxwell's Fictional Boyfriends

12:00 AM Serena 5 Comments

Hello, all! Happy Friday! I have a special guest on the blog today. You know how much I love finding people who love talking about fictional guys and gals as much as I do, so I'm so happy have Lisa Maxwell, author of the upcoming Unhooked, here.


Thanks so much for having me on Reading Over Sleeping! I’m excited to be here talking about my favorite book boyfriends!
#1 Forever and Always: James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser. And yes, I did just type out his entire name. I’m not sure who hasn’t heard of OUTLANDER by this point, but I’m a huge fan of the entire series. I love Claire something fierce (she’d be my #1 book girlfriend), but what is not to like about her one true love, Jamie Fraser? Even if he wasn’t tall, dark, and Scottish, he’s steadfast and true. He’s a hero worthy of Claire, and even across the decades, he’s every bit as wonderful as he was in that first book, when he’s a 21 year old virgin.
#2 But a Darn Close Second: Jericho Barrons. Holy hell, Barrons. He’s the…well, he’s not exactly a hero, is he? But he’s the main man in Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series. For most of the series, you don’t know if he’s even one of the good guys, and you don’t even care. The chemistry between Mac and Barrons just sizzles, and the five-book of nearly torturous sexual tension is totally worth the payoff.
#3 My First Book Boyfriend: I was 17 when I first read ALL THE PRETTY HORSES, but John Grady Cole stole my heart. This is one movie adaptation that should have never been made, because no way did Matt Damon capture the ardent-hearted innocence of this character. I fell hard for him then, and still do every time I re-read the book.
#4 The Darkling: I mean, Mal is nice and all, but who could help but love The Darkling in Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha trilogy? I’m not sure what this says about me, but I really wanted things to work out for him. That scene where you can tell just how tortured he is by his attraction to Alina? *bites fist*  That can’t be just me, right. RIGHT?
#5 The Captain: I know, I know. He’s mine, but…he’s MINE. I’ve seen a lot of comparisons to my Captain and Hook on OUAT. I’m a huge admirer of Colin O’Donoghue’s version of the character, so these make me really happy, but the truth is, I wrote my Hook about a year before that storyline. They have a lot in common, but my Hook is younger and a bit more tortured. From the first moment he swaggered onto the page, I was in love, and the more I developed his backstory, the more hooked (hahaha) I was. And still am. So I’ll take all the comparisons to OUAT people want to make, but in my head, the Captain is even better.
Thanks so much for having me!!


About Lisa: 

Lisa Maxwell is the author of Sweet Unrest, Gathering Deep, and Unhooked (Simon Pulse, 2-2-16). When she's not writing books, she's an English professor at a local college. She lives near DC with her very patient husband and two not-so patient boys.
This July, she will be teaching a writing workshop for a week in western Ireland. You can check out more information at http://www.irelandwritertours.com/
Find Lisa online:


Twitter: @lisamaxwellYA

About Unhooked:

For as long as she can remember, Gwendolyn Allister has never had a place to call home—all because her mother believes that monsters are hunting them. Now these delusions have brought them to London, far from the life Gwen had finally started to build for herself. The only saving grace is her best friend, Olivia, who’s coming with them for the summer.

But when Gwen and Olivia are kidnapped by shadowy creatures and taken to a world of flesh-eating sea hags and dangerous Fey, Gwen realizes her mom might have been sane all along.

The world Gwen finds herself in is called Neverland, yet it’s nothing like the stories. Here, good and evil lose their meaning and memories slip like water through her fingers. As Gwen struggles to remember where she came from and find a way home, she must choose between trusting the charming fairy-tale hero who says all the right things and the roguish young pirate who promises to keep her safe.

With time running out and her enemies closing in, Gwen is forced to face the truths she’s been hiding from all along. But will she be able to save Neverland without losing herself? 


Lisa and I would love to hear about your fictional crushes. Feel free to gush in the comments! Thanks for stopping by, and thanks, Lisa, for writing! Grab Unhooked when it releases on Tuesday! 

5 comments:

Waiting on Wednesday: A Study in Charlotte

12:00 AM Serena 2 Comments

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature, hosted by Breaking the Spine, where bloggers share upcoming releases they're eagerly anticipating. 

This week's pick is:
A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro
Expected Publication Date: March 1st, 2016
Goodreads / Preorder: Amazon - Barnes and Noble
The last thing sixteen-year-old Jamie Watson–writer and great-great-grandson of the John Watson–wants is a rugby scholarship to Sherringford, a Connecticut prep school just an hour away from his estranged father. But that’s not the only complication: Sherringford is also home to Charlotte Holmes, the famous detective’s enigmatic, fiercely independent great-great-granddaughter, who’s inherited not just his genius but also his vices, volatile temperament, and expertly hidden vulnerability. Charlotte has been the object of his fascination for as long as he can remember–but from the moment they meet, there’s a tense energy between them, and they seem more destined to be rivals than anything else.

Then a Sherringford student dies under suspicious circumstances ripped straight from the most terrifying of the Holmes stories, and Jamie and Charlotte become the prime suspects. Convinced they’re being framed, they must race against the police to conduct their own investigation. As danger mounts, it becomes clear that nowhere is safe and the only people they can trust are each other.
Equal parts tender, thrilling, and hilarious, A Study in Charlotte is the first in a trilogy brimming with wit and edge-of-the-seat suspense. 

Though I haven't read the original Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes stories, I've fallen in love with Sherlock and John and their mysteries in BBC's Sherlock. I'm looking forward to reading this particular take on a classic. 

What are you waiting on this Wednesday? Let me know!


2 comments:

ARC Review: The Serpent King

3:42 PM Serena 4 Comments

The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner
Expected Publication Date: March 8th, 2016
Format/Source: ARC, borrowed from Stefani @ Caught Read Handed. Thank you! 
Rating: 5/5 stars
Part of a series?  No

I signed up for the ARC tour of The Serpent King knowing very little about it. I thought, “OOH, contemporary YA about small town life! Sign me up”. There was no way I could have anticipated how much I would love it and how much reading it would affect me. This book is a wild ride.


The novel is told from the points of view of the three main characters, Dill, Lydia, and Travis. Each of the characters is unique and feels important, and they have chemistry and love each other. (Have you ever read a book where one of the characters just felt off? Like they were an afterthought? Yeah, not the case here.)


Lydia is a popular fashion blogger that prefers books and blogging to people her own age. She's sassy and has many platonic crushes on people she wants to be friends with. #Relatable. She also knows exactly what she wants to do after high school and can't wait to get out of their town. Dill, on the other hand, doesn't know what to do with his life after high school, and he struggles with his family and his religion. He doesn't know if he should choose to stay with his family or go off to college. Travis prefers to be stuck in a fantasy world because his home situation is awful. They're all very different, but they work as friends, and I fell in love with all three of them.


The Serpent King hits on so many points that really resonated with me. The most prominent being that Lydia is both strong and soft, which was important to me because so often, the two are thought of as exclusive of each other. Zentner also nailed the longing to be better and to figure yourself out and to stop being afraid that is such an overwhelming feeling within teenagers. One that I myself have been struggling with a lot as the college application process gets closer.


The last thing that I felt was handled really well was the grieving process. Zentner illustrated that people grieve in different ways, and he also portrayed how important medication and therapy can be when you're dealing with a loss or a mental illness like depression. They're often shown in a negative light, but medications and counsellors can truly help people.

The Serpent King is a beautiful, unique debut about love, loss, and self-discovery. I laughed, I cried, and I just plain loved this book even as it was breaking my heart. I highly recommend it. Find it in stores and online March 8th!

4 comments:

Cover Reveal: Right of First Refusal

12:00 AM Serena 0 Comments

Hi, all! If you know me at all, you know that one of my recent favorite authors is Dahlia Adler. Like, I'm borderline obsessed with her books, and she's a fantastic person to be following on Twitter if you love books. 

 I've been waiting for her next NA novel, Right of First Refusal, since I read the first book in the series, so I'm so excited to be able to help reveal the cover to you guys today. 

 I'll keep you in suspense for a little longer...While we're here, let's learn a bit about Dahlia. 
About the Author:

Dahlia Adler is an Associate Editor of Mathematics by day, a blogger for B&N Teen Blog by night, and writes Contemporary YA and NA at every spare moment in between. She's the author of the Daylight Falls duology, Just Visiting, and the Radleigh University series, as well as over five billion tweets as @MissDahlELama. She lives in New York City with her husband and their overstuffed bookshelves. 

You probably also want to learn what Right of First Refusal is about if you don't know...

About Right of First Refusal:

On the lacrosse field, Cait Johanssen gets what she wants. Off the field is another story. Because what she wants is the school's hot new basketball student-coach, Lawrence Mason, who also happens to be the guy who broke her heart in sports camp two years earlier.

But it's Cait's new roommate who's got him.

Cait and Mase agree it's best to keep their past a secret, but she doesn't expect him to completely ignore their history...or how much it'll hurt when he does. So when a friend on the basketball team asks her to pose as his girlfriend for a night, Cait can't turn down the opportunity for distraction. (Okay, and a little spite.) But what starts as an evening of fun turns into a fake relationship with more lies than the usually drama-free Cait can handle, and it's only keeping her from the one truth that's nagged at her for years: Why did Mase cut her out of his life to begin with?

And is it really too late to get him back?


Okay, I think I've kept you in suspense for long enough. Here's the gorgeous cover for the upcoming Right of First Refusal! Grab it on March 15th!


EEEPPP, isn't it gorgeous! Don't you love it? I love it. Both the cover and author photo are the work of the lovely Maggie Hall. 

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Let me know if you're as excited for Right of First Refusal I am in the comments. 


0 comments:

Review: Pushing the Limits

12:00 AM Serena 3 Comments

Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry
Publication Date: July 31st, 2012
Format/Source: Ebook, purchased
Rating: 5/5 stars
Part of a series? Yes! The first in the Pushing the Limits series. 
Goodreads / Purchase: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - The Book Depository

So wrong for each other …and yet so right.

No one knows what happened the night Echo Emerson went from popular girl with jock boyfriend to gossiped-about outsider with "freaky" scars on her arms. Even Echo can't remember the whole truth of that horrible night. All she knows is that she wants everything to go back to normal. 

But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his tough attitude and surprising understanding, Echo's world shifts in ways she could never have imagined. They should have nothing in common. And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible. 

Yet the crazy attraction between them refuses to go away. And Echo has to ask herself just how far they can push the limits and what she'll risk for the one guy who might teach her how to love again.

*Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers. Read on at your own risk.*

I shied away from this series for a long time because I honestly thought the covers were kind of ugly, which sounds so awful and judgey when I say it (er, type it) but it's the truth. Contemporary romance is my jam, as you probably know, and I've come to love series of companion novels, so I entered a giveaway for Dare You To. And I won it and I loved it and this is the story of how Serena learned not to judge books by their covers. Not really, this is still a review for Pushing the Limits, but we're getting to that. Anyway, I read, more like devoured actually, Pushing the Limits, and I loved it just as much as I loved Dare You To. 

Noah and Echo are already together and very much in love in Dare You To, so I could not wait to read about them getting together. And oh, man, was it great waiting for them to get together. It's your typical kids-from-opposite-sides-of-town-can't-resist-each-other-oh-no love story, but it's also so much more. They didn't think they had anything in common, but they grew to realize they were good together. Echo has a sort-of boyfriend at the time, but she chooses Noah over him because she knows Noah would treat her right despite their differences in status on the high school social ladder. (Side note: Echo's ex-boyfriend was a total jerk who would not take no for an answer and tried to pressure her into having sex which is so ugh and a big ol' no from me.) 

 And their relationship is even better when they're actually together. Noah is so attentive to Echo, to her needs. He's so intent on showing he cares when he can't voice his feelings. His decision to propose without telling her he loved her was pretty rash, but he figured it out. They didn't try to shut each other out, and they were both open to accepting help from the other, for the most part. I love them together. 

 I loved them individually as well, Noah especially. His love for his brothers and his eventual decision to let them stay with their foster parents made my heart swell. He's a great big brother, and he really tries. I thought Echo would be stuck-up and one of those people who cares a lot about appearances and social standing, but she's not at all. Some of her friends are, but she's down-to-earth, and she learns not to take anyone's crap. Her relationship with her family is rocky for a different reason than Noah, and she also ends up dealing with it in a healthy, mature way despite her pain. 

 Of course, the writing was awesome. It was well-paced and had me reading continually until I finished at one am because I needed to find out what happened to Echo. Katie McGarry writes romance so well. Her books and her couples are unique and swoony, and this was no exception.

 Pushing the Limits is a beautiful start to an amazing series of companion novels. I can't wait to read the rest of the series (and pretty much anything McGarry writes). I highly recommend it to all my fellow fans of swoon-worthy contemporary romance. 

 Have you read Pushing the Limits? What did you think? Let me know!

3 comments:

Waiting on Wednesday: Lady Midnight

12:00 AM Serena 0 Comments

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature, hosted by Breaking the Spine, for bloggers to share upcoming releases they're eagerly anticipating. 

Welcome to the first Waiting on Wednesday of the year! This week's pick is:

Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare
Expected Publication Date: March 8th, 2016
Goodreads / Preorder: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - The Book Depository

Los Angeles. It’s been five years since the events of the Mortal Instruments when Nephilim stood poised on the brink of oblivion and Shadowhunter Emma Carstairs lost her parents. After the blood and violence she witnessed as a child, Emma has dedicated her life to to discovering exactly what it was that killed her parents and getting her revenge.

Raised in the Los Angeles Institute with the Blackthorn family, Emma is paired as a parabatai with her best friend, Julian Blackthorn. A series of murders in the city catch her attention — they seem to have the same characteristics as the deaths of her parents. Could the murderer be the same person? And her attention isn’t the only one caught: someone has been murdering Downworlders as well. The Fair Folk make a deal with the Institute: if the Blackthorns and Emma will investigate the killings, they’ll return Mark Blackthorn to his home. The catch: they have only two weeks to find the killers. Otherwise it’s open war between faeries and Nephilim.

The Shadowhunters of the Institute must race against time to catch the killers, even as they begin to suspect the involvement of those closest to them. At the same time, Emma is falling in love with the one person in the world she’s absolutely forbidden by Shadowhunter Law to love. Set against the glittering backdrop of present-day Los Angeles, Emma must learn to trust her head and her heart as she investigates a demonic plot that stretches from the warlock-run nightclubs of the Sunset Strip to the enchanted sea that pounds the beaches of Santa Monica. 

I was so excited when this series was announced because 1) it's Cassandra Clare, and, unlike a lot of other people, I loved The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices and 2) it takes place in LA, and as a SoCal native, I love LA. The Infernal Devices is one of my favorite series ever, so I have pretty high expectations for The Dark Artifices. I hope Lady Midnight is as good as I hope it will be. 

What are you waiting on this Wednesday? Let me know!



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