Touching on so much about the characters’ identities, this book also had some great rep; from bisexuality, asexuality, as well as Elsie’s dual nationality, there were so many avenues to be explored, and I can only imagine how brilliant this book would feel in the hands of a reader who feels like they see themselves in the characters and on the pages of this book. 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. There’s travelling with her best friend, finding a job she loves, meeting new people, keeping up with her favourite comic, chatting to her internet friend-turned-crush. Each relationship – familial, platonic or romantic is written with such attention to detail and precision that you get a real insight into the dynamics of each. Its a very simple story, about love to other people as much as live to your family, about understanding emotions and unraveling yourself from the mist of past.

In a summer of repairing broken connections and building surprising new ones, Elsie realises that she isn't nearly as alone as she thought. What makes this stand out the most is the main character's relationships with her family members, particularly her mother, grandmother and uncle, that are explored with so much care. So many important conversations about queerness, the gender binary and how it is influenced by your race/cultural background. 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.Although issues of sexuality and gender are prominent, this novel also has much to say about cultural inheritance, found and biological family, assimilation, racism, and acceptance, but all of these topics are wonderfully woven within the narrative and organic.

Both a time capsule of mid 2010’s fandom culture and a heartwarming childhood friends to lovers story starring QPOC, If You Still Recognize Me explores so much in a short amount of page time. It's a true ode to fandom which was so fun to read about; I'm not I've ever read a book where fandom culture is so accurately and beautifully portrayed! I was lucky enough to be given early access to Cynthia So’s debut novel ‘If You Still Recognise Me’, an incredible queer coming of age story, that had me so hooked I finished it in a single sitting! Just a tiny little thing, and since I’m trying to keep this spoiler-free, I won’t mention it in details. One thing that I really loved was that coming out to her family is Elsie's end goal, but she hasn't done so by the end of the book, and that doesn't take away from her identity in any way.Reading his experience with discovering his identity in this book truly means a lot to me as someone who’s ace and needed this kind of rep when I was a teen. But then she suddenly meets her long-lost best friend Joan again and everything gets a little bit more complicated.