IF YOU STILL RECOGNIZE ME

It’s the summer before she starts university, and a comic enthusiast from Oxford, England, has plans.

In addition to a vacation with best friend Ritika Ghosh, Elsie Lo is finally going to confess her feelings for Ada Hobbs, her long-distance crush and online fandom friend who has a Black Nigerian mum and a White English dad. Things start to shift when Elsie runs into Joan Tse, the childhood BFF who ghosted her years ago. The two start chatting, rekindle a friendship, and come out to each other as lesbian (Joan) and bi (Elsie). Elsie shares her plan to try to reunite two long-separated women—probably lesbian lovers, one of them Ada’s grandmother. She hopes this grand romantic gesture will impress Ada. Joan is game to join in, and the Cornwall vacation with Ritika turns into a three-person research trip. This ambitious novel has many threads, including an epistolary element and multiple romances, and it doesn’t always come together. The relatively deep backstories—Elsie is also the survivor of an unhealthy relationship—and numerous key characters make for a slow start. Still, Elsie’s search for an older generation of queer women even as she grapples with her own challenging grandmother gives the story momentum and depth, and her journey to finding love, her people, and herself rings tender and true. Both Elsie’s and Joan’s families are from Hong Kong; most major characters are people of color and/or queer.

A worthwhile celebration of love and second chances from a fresh voice.