If You Still Recognise Me

Product Information

This story tackles topics like grief, complicated relationships with family members, toxic relationships, and discovering your place in the world. As an own voices reviewer; the family dynamics of an East Asian family were so unashamedly raw, this – not tokenism and harmful stereotypes – is the type of representation we need.

When can I have enough courage to ask my childhood best friend if she's sapphic because she sure hell make my gaydar go off the charts and how do I say I like her without it ending in the dumpster fire. There’s definitely some debate among characters about the decisions they’re making along the way, and with that comes the expected friction. It felt like a love letter to all of us readers who grew up immersed in those spaces, it almost me nostalgic for a time where waiting for the newest update was my primary issue. It was sometimes dull, and I found the main romance somewhat underwhelming and thought it lacked the buildup and longing I wanted from childhood friends to lovers. Their work has been published in speculative fiction magazines such as Uncanny, Strange Horizons, and Anathema.

She’s insecure after a toxic relationship, she’s falling for someone she hasn’t met just yet, she’s scared of coming out as bisexual to her parents… I really loved how she grew as the story went on, what she learned about herself, her family and most of it all, how she managed to slowly, little by little, let go of the past, as well. So many important conversations about queerness, the gender binary and how it is influenced by your race/cultural background.

And this book is as much about identity as it is about loss - the loss of contact, loss of time, and sometimes feeling the loss of a person less so than the loss of what they could have been to you. I loved the premise of If You Still Recognise Me and flew to request it on NetGalley when I first heard of it; ultimately, however, I have to admit I'm sort of disappointed considering the expectations I had initially.

The writing was so thoughtful and so beautiful, and there's so much quiet depth in this book that makes it stand out in the YA contemporary genre. Elsie is also dealing with the repercussions of a past toxic relationship and I thought that was discussed very gently and carefully. We had lesbians and gays and ace and people who didn’t have a label and people who were just trying to figure themselves out.

I loved the representation and was especially thrilled to hear that Elsie, the main character, is Chinese and bi (as someone who's also Chinese and bi). This wasn’t too much of an issue for me personally, but I can see why some people wouldn’t like this element of the story.While I grew up in Tumblr fandoms (and therefore can definitely relate to a lot of Elsie's online experiences), it's not really my favourite thing to read about anymore. There isn't much happening, so if you're looking for action-packed YA novel you may feel disappointed.