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A review by nolemdaer
If You Still Recognize Me by Cynthia So
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
The thing about this book is that it's a slow-moving, pensive story of the main character Elsie's final summer before university and her journey throughout that summer. And the thing about me is that I couldn't stand the main character, so by the halfway mark, I was considering DNFing and powered through until the end. Elsie seems incapable of learning any piece of information about anyone else in the world and not making it all about her, and this sense of everything being all about her and what she would do and how she felt was the impetus of basically every plot point in the book. She has a pie-in-the-sky commitment to tracking down this woman her Internet's friend's grandmother knew in the seventies (pure delusion that reminded me of Camp and made me think these people should get a restraining order against her) and is generally a bad or just tepid friend to all the fantastic people in her life. There are so many interesting stories circling the central one, from Elsie's mom and uncle and grandparents to her love interest to even her best friend. Yet nothing can ever be about any other person. All the stories are ultimately solely about her, leading her to act or react in frustrating ways, and all these people forgive her instantly whenever she does something questionable or just plain invasive. And of course this is her story, but her story seems to be made up only of meddling with other people's lives!
The book itself was well-written enough - there weren't glaring issues with the plot structure or character writing, per se, and I'm talking myself into upping this a quarter-star because the actual writing was fine. The MC was just so deeply unlikable to me and the story seemed so focused on making sure that she was always forgiven and never asked to change in any meaningful way.
The book itself was well-written enough - there weren't glaring issues with the plot structure or character writing, per se, and I'm talking myself into upping this a quarter-star because the actual writing was fine. The MC was just so deeply unlikable to me and the story seemed so focused on making sure that she was always forgiven and never asked to change in any meaningful way.