IYSRM follows Elsie, a bi girl in the UK who has just one summer before starting at Cambridge for uni. Elsie is determined to use this summer to finally admit her crush on her Internet best friend, Ada. But then her childhood best friend comes back into the picture and Elsie’s summer turns into a whirlwind of evolving feelings, family secrets, and an attempt at reconnecting long-lost loves.

Elsie has so much of me: a queer girl who struggles to make friends, but when she does, it’s with her whole heart. An awkward person who uses fanfiction and fandom as an escape from her life, as something to keep her going. Even in our differences, there’s something about her that’s striking: where I’m obsessed with mounds of queer books, she’s obsessed with a queer-coded comic series. And as someone who is also academically-driven, I felt her need to escape into fiction in such a matter of fact way. Where I don’t crush on people, Elsie most certainly is in love with her Internet best friend, Ada. I can relate to that feeling of loving someone across thousands of miles, even if it isn’t romantic.

There are also so many parts of Elsie I don’t — and can’t — understand. I am not Chinese like Elsie, nor do I have trauma from a toxic relationship like she does. But the fact that she exists for other people too and has touched the lives of my friends — Meilin and Naomi, who I read this with, and Micah and Cel, who I admire — makes this book needed.

But beyond the characters, I loved the journey Elsie goes on, trying to reconcile who she was with who she is with who she wants to be. The romance, the friendships, the family relationships are all handled with such nuance and care. There’s something so special about how feelings evolve, how they can bloom into something unexpected and make you realize some of the most personal discoveries.

This book is for all Elsies out there: I hope you find that there will always be someone who recognizes you.

Trigger Warnings: homophobia and biphobia (internalized, targeted, microaggressions), toxic relationship recounted, off-page grandparent death, off-page disownment, internalized racism, fetish for Asian women by an off-page side character

i wanted to love this but i can’t do the “i’m in love with someone and am gonna spend 80% of the book gushing about them just to realize in the last 20% that i actually am in love with my best friend” trope. it was cute-ish tho i just didn’t care for this romance and also hated 99% of decisions the main character made. she was so dumb.

if any of my online friends ever decided to track down a random person from my grandma’s life without telling me, we would never speak again.

also, i know this was a love letter to fandom, but oh my god please stop bringing up tumblr we get it.

This was a great sapphic YA book with very important themes.
Elsie is a Chinese American bisexual girl, who just graduated high school. Her life is changing not only in this aspect, but her grandpa from China also just died and her grandma comes to live with them for a while. On top of that not only her grandma which she hasn’t seen in a decade unexpectedly steps into her life again, but her old best friend who moved to China years and never answered her e-mails also does.

It was a great story about family, what it’s like growing up as an asian woman in America (especially sexualisation!), toxic relationships, forming new (queer) friendships, reinvigorating old friendships and girl crushes.
While I loved every aspect of this book in itself, for me it was just a bit MUCH for one book.
There was also the family secret, the fanfic, the comic book store, the hunt for Theresa, her friends love life dramas, her one crush, then her other crush…it was simply a lot for one book. My brain was rattling. I wish it would have focused on one thing, or maybe two, but not 7 stories all in one.
I still think this is a good book many teens will enjoy and I absolutely loved to see a chinese American MC and family in a queer YA romance!

Cynthia So's "If You Still Recognize Me" is a sweet sapphic love story about friends reuniting after being out of touch over time and continents. This story follows Elsie, whose grandmother comes from Hong Kong to live with her family in England. She has a long-distance crush on her internet friend Ada who she bonded with over the comic Eden Recoiling and the fanfiction that Ada writes. However, Joan, Elsie's childhood best friend, re-enters her life after spending several years in Hong Kong.

Parallel to Elsie and Joan's rekindled friendship, the novel uses letters to tell the story of Theresa and Rebecca, Ada's grandmother, and her long-lost pen pal. Elsie and Joan use the summer to search for Rebecca and rekindle their friendship or possibly more.

In addition to the love story, So weaves in Elsie's journey about her identity as a queer person of Asian descent and the prejudices her family and friends may carry. The author's skillful storytelling and parallel narratives create a compelling exploration of reconnection and self-discovery. With its themes of love, friendship, and the power of finding oneself, this book is a heartfelt story about family, friends, and love.

adorable and fun to read book, great characters

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the review copy.

I don’t normally go for sapphic romances, but I might have to rethink my preferences after this one! Wowza!! A beautiful exploration of cultural identity and the complexities of friendship and romantic interests. This book is a wonderful celebration of the LGBTQ+ community and queer identity. The story is complex without feeling like the plot isn’t completely developed, and I loved the first person narration here. A beautiful coming of age story and a new personal favorite!

Thank you HaperTeen for providing me with the opportunity to read and review and advanced copy of this book.

I honestly didn't know what I expected. I knew I would enjoy it but I didn't expect to fall in love with the story.

I felt myself laughing and gasping at all the little moments. It was just what I needed to help me ease out of my current reading slump.

I had a feeling I knew where the story was going but it still hit me nonetheless.

This is one of my favorite books of the year and we're only in June!

Elsie is a bisexual Chinese-British teenager who is in the summer before starting university. She hasn't come out to her family and lives most of her life online aside from her best friend. This follows her coming of age and discovering a more fulfilling real life.

The prose is beautiful and introspective, This book perfectly balances pace, daily life, and romance. It made for an engaging and enjoyable read. I also loved the family relationships in this book. They were difficult at times, but the love was almost palpable even when characters were struggling with things they don't understand.

This book is unapologetically queer. The main character struggles at times with her expression of queerness and what it means for her. It does so in a beautiful way where it shows the beauty of exploration of identity. And then there's the love interest, Joan. A butch lesbian who has lived in Hong Kong for the past six years and is unapologetically queer and masc.

And the older queer characters. I can't get into details without spoiling some family dynamics but there's something so hopeful about older queer characters. Especially ones who are happy.

Plus there's an ace side character and they were very well done.

There's just so much queerness in this book and it's all wonderful. Overall, I highly recommend it

*Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review*

This was a really sweet sapphic ya romance. I personally wasn’t the biggest fan but that was mostly my preferences. The characters felt a bit younger than they are and I don’t love, love triangles. Despite that, I enjoyed the characters and family dynamics.

Not only does Cynthia So show the importance of fandom spaces and give online friendships the importance they deserve, but they also use it to highlight the disparity of queer and POC rep in media, and the effect this not only has on teens themselves, but how it can negatively impact those around them. At one point of the book, Joan explains how there isn't really any queer rep in Hong Kong and the effect this has on her homophobic dad. Positive queer and POC rep is SO important, and that's what Cynthia So provides with this book.

If You Still Recognize Me is a coming of age and LGBTQIA identification story that is wrapped in a YA Romance. Elsie is the heroine, who is required by her family to care for her grandmother. The novel evolves into LGBTQIA identification and a crush on a same sex person. Additionally, this is about a family who must reconcile with their biases when a family member comes out as gay. Elsie must learn to navigate her own feelings as a bisexual young woman. While this was a very well written book, adding cultural elements in addition to feelings, I felt here were so many issues the heroine had to deal with. Yes, it’s life—realizing that family can be asses when it comes to our love life and personalities which may conflict with their culture—but I would have preferred to read a narrowly focused story about Elsie’s burgeoning feelings for someone from her past.
Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a very fun summer read! The romance was cute, the character growth was wonderful to see, and the friendships and familial relationships all felt very true to life and familiar (who among us hasn’t had an online friend they’ve know for years that they crushed on one point? …that’s not a universal experience? Sounds fake, but ok.)

At first I was a bit worried that were too many separate plot threads going on, but by the end that didn't bother me. I really appreciated the portrayal of friendships, and an intersectional look at part of the queer community that doesn't get much representation. The MC's involvement in fandom could be a draw for some--it does, however, feel a bit dated by name-dropping tumblr. (Except for the phones, I'd believe it was set a decade ago.)

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.

I got an ARC of this book.

It has gotten to the point when the MC is super into fanfic that I should just know the story isn't going to work out for me. There has only been one book where fanfiction played a part that I didn't have to force myself to keep reading. It is probably coincidence, but it is a trend I am noticing lately.

I just couldn't get into this book. I tried, I really did. I love the long distance pining for an internet friend. That is something I love seeing in books. This time it just didn't work for me.

This is probably a me and not the book problem. Sometimes books just don't click, even when there is nothing wrong with them. I feel like this is one of those times. Give this book a shot.

I read about 20% of this and had to dnf. Sapphic young adult contemporary is usually something I enjoy, but this story read too young for me and the characters feel quite flat. The characters are 18 years old but are written more like 13-15. Unfortunately, this did not work for me but it seems to have amazing LGBTQ, Asian representation for a much younger audience.

This books plot wad different, but it also felt the same?? It was basic and flat. Inreally need to stop getting books just based off of adorable covers. I feel like maybe I've out grew the YA genre? It might be ok for a young teen to read bc it felt very juvenile.

This book gave a perspective that I had not yet seen; the Chinese attitude towards not only gay members of society, but even towards anyone that did not toe the expected gender norms. Elise when she was younger and Joan now dressing too 'boyish' or men wearing floral shirts, these were deemed wrong in the eyes of the Chinese society that they grew up in.

I appreciated the LGBTQA+ community that was present in this book. Elise had SO much support in her life, even though she was not getting it from her family. The multi-generational love stories were interesting, as well; it is always fascinating to see how views have changed over time.

Here is my difficulty with this book. I love a YA that appeals to adults, as well, and I don't think this one would crossover well. The constant references to fanfic just lost my interest, as did Elise's continual pining for her toxic ex. She recognized that he was an awful person, but kept thinking of him in an 'I miss him' light. Between that and all the wishy-washy feelings I lost respect for Elise.

2.5 stars, rounded up for the cultural value.

I absolutely adored this book. There are so many things I liked about it, but I'm really bad at making sense of my thoughts, so I'll do my best. The way queerness is written and portrayed throughout the book was amazing. The author does a great job showing the difficult aspects of it, while at the same time really focusing on the positive experiences. The joys of having a community, finding your place in it, it was a reminder of how beautiful it is to be queer.

I also loved the relationships we see, be it friends, family or others. I liked the exploration of Elsie and her family, especially her mom, as well as their complicated relationship with her grandma. The friendship she has with Ada and the way it exists and evolves was amazing. The relationship with Ritika, her best friend, and Joan, who returns to her life after a long time, were definitely my favorite part.

The discussions of identity were so important, even though elsie is very sure about her sexuality, there are other parts of her identity that she's not so sure about and that she works on, I love to see characters learn more about themselves and grow.

The plot was interesting, and while it's clearly somewhat predictable, it was still entertaining and carried the story and characters in a good way. There are also things that are kind of small I guess, like the fact that we get to see multiple generations of queer people and their different experiences.

Overall, one of the best books I've read this year and a new favorite.

elsie’s story is one about the joy in fandom & friendship along with what it means to find a love that makes you feel seen—especially after being hurt in the past.

an absolute must-read. ♡