When you’re a teenager, there’s definitely ‘cool’ hobbies, but it was so refreshing to see people who were so engrossed in these fictional worlds – definitely people I would have been friends with had I known them at school! We get to see this explored through memories, food, language, clothes, the ways we may seek approval and who we seek it from. There is also such an interesting balance of having a strong attachment to culture and heritage as well as feeling something of a disconnect from it sometimes. the inexplicable connection that we just feel, right away, to some people, when with the vast sea of humans we have to work hard to get anywhere at all. If you loved Heartstopper and need more feel-good LGBTQ+ romance – If You Still Recognise Me is the one for you!

A tender and emotional read that beautifully weaves together a nuanced and multilayered story of friendship, family, cultural identity, love, abusive relationships, self discovery, sexual identity and gender expression. She knows things Elsie has forgotten or never knew to begin with, and I was very grateful to learn things along with her, particularly about the kinds of labels used by queer people there. The characters also felt quite young, like I kept thinking they were 15 or 16 when in fact they're meant to be 18 or 19 and heading off to university. This novel came to me with high recommendations, and it never once made me fear that it wouldn't deliver the triumphant story I was promised. She’s introverted and struggles to make friends but lives for a graphic novel series and its fandom.I fell completely head over heels for her which is very rare for me in books—she was just that good. I thought this story was going to be a light, cheesy romance and I was pleasantly surprised by how this book was so much more than that. Cynthia So leans into the complex fluidity of relationships over time, across generations and communities, shaded by culture and circumstances.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. So many important conversations about queerness, the gender binary and how it is influenced by your race/cultural background. With this range of ages, Cynthia So does a brilliant job of showing the generational gap when it comes to reactions to queerness in a way that manages to be both heartbreaking but beautifully hopeful all at the same time. This story isn’t without its flaws, but I still loved it and I was caught off guard by the complex issues that the story tackles.This is a wonderful summer YA book with tons of amazing queer representation, a main character who's really into comics and lots of focus on family and friends. If You Still Recognise Me follows Elsie, an 18 year old bisexual girl, on a journey of self discovery and. I loved how we not only saw LGBT teenagers but also adults and elderly people too, again giving this book some fantastic depth and representation. 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. Whilst the main character is sure of her bisexuality, we get to see a number of her friends figuring out their sexuality in a way that I know will help so many questioning teens.

Elsie made a lot of decisions with her friendship with Ritika that I personally disagreed with and if I were Ritika, I honestly would’ve ended my friendship with Elsie or at the very least been furious with her because of some of the things that Elsie did.

As a reader, this is a pure delight of a novel that I think will appeal to many readers for many different reasons.