If You Still Recognize Me, by Cynthia So, follows Elsie, a closeted bisexual girl, during the summer before university. After pining after her online friend, Ada, for years, she has decided that she will finally tell her her feelings. However, when her childhood best friend, Joan, comes back into her life, Elsie’s plans in that regard get derailed.

This book felt like such a hug during Pride Month. I was expecting a summer rom-com, but it turned out to be a lovely book about grief, family, and queer community.

I have a complicated relationship with Elsie as our main character. One the one hand, her bisexuality and her relationship with fandom made her intensely relatable to me, but, on the other hand, she definitely has issues with boundaries and treats both Ada and her real-life best friend, Ritika, somewhat poorly. I also struggle to truly tell you anything real about Elsie’s personality. As a femme queer girl I can’t speak to her relationship to her gender presentation, where she has dressed more femininely than she is comfortable with in order to fit in, but that aspect of her journey seemed like one of the best-written aspects of the book.

Joan, Elsie’s childhood friend who has just returned after moving away seven years prior, is an okay character, but does not feel multidimensional or like she has any depth at all. I honestly would have been fine had she not been there at all and the story was simply about Elsie discovering a queer community while trying to impress her online crush. I didn’t feel like she added anything to the story other than being present until Elsie eventually realizes that she likes her. There isn’t any chemistry at all between them.

Ritika, Elsie’s best friend, is my favorite character in the book by far, which is helped by the fact that she is the character in the book who feels the most like an actual human with a personality. I do feel like Elsie’s mistreatment of her is ignored somewhat, but I really appreciated her subplots and everything.

One thing I absolutely adored about the book was its depiction of fandom, and particularly the way in which it called out the nature of fandoms being obsessed with shipping white male characters but pay virtually no attention to any sapphic ships, especially those between people of color. That’s something that bothers me so much in fandom but which I have never seen noted in depictions of it before, so I really appreciated that.

I really didn’t love the way that asexuality and aromanticism were treated in the book. There is one asexual character there whose identity is literally discussed for one page and who very much just feels like token rep, while there is another questioning character who says things that sound very aromantic (they enjoy sexual activity but don’t seem to have felt any real romantic feelings for anybody), but that aspect of their identity is ignored and clearly unintentional. As an aspec person myself, I really wish those identities had been approached with a little more care. I think it otherwise depicted the multitude of queer experiences really well though.

My feelings about this book are definitely complicated. I enjoyed reading it and loved the queer community and fandom aspects of it, but otherwise cannot really bring myself to recommend it that strongly. I think that it has really good sapphic rep, and I’d give it a try if you’re looking for a feel-good queer story, but ultimately the characters felt flat enough to me that I cannot give it any more than a 3.5/5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.