If You Still Recognise Me by Cynthia So

Pages: 364 

Publisher: Little Tiger 

Released: 9th of June 2022 

Elsie has a crush on Ada, the only person in the world who truly understands her. Unfortunately, they've never met in real life and Ada lives an ocean away. But Elsie has decided it's now or never to tell Ada how she feels. That is, until her long-lost best friend Joan walks back into her life.

In a summer of repairing broken connections and building surprising new ones, Elsie realises that she isn't nearly as alone as she thought. But now she has a choice to make...

What I Have to Say 

This book was sooooo gay. I loved it. Not only was the main character bisexual, but they represented all manner of bi and gay people. It also shared something about the lesbian culture in Hong Kong and some of how they labelled themselves, which was really interesting to read about. 

It was full longing and crushes, which were beautifully written and I could not tell most of the way through who Elsie would end up with. 

It also had references to an abusive relationship, which the main character Elsie is still recovering from. It also showed the family pressures of not feeling entirely safe to come out around your family, both with the feelings of disapproval that Elsie gets from her own family and the out right homophobia from Joan's father. 

I also adored how much about fandom it was and especially that it was about fandom but without the main character being a writer. 

My thanks go to Little Tiger and Netgalley for providing me with this copy for review. 

The Life of a Banana by PP Wong

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 270

Publisher: Legend Press 

Released: 1st of September 2018 

Xing Li is what some Chinese people call a banana - yellow on the outside and white on the inside. Although born and raised in London, she never feels like she fits in. When her mother dies, she moves with her older brother to live with venomous Grandma, strange Uncle Ho and Hollywood actress Auntie Mei. Her only friend is Jay - a mixed raced Jamaican boy with a passion for classical music.

Then Xing Li's life takes an even harsher turn: the school bullying escalates and her uncle requests she assist him in an unthinkable favour. Her happy childhood becomes a distant memory as her new life is infiltrated with the harsh reality of being an ethnic minority.

Consumed by secrets, violence and confusing family relations, Xing Li tries to find hope wherever she can. In order to find her own identity, she must first discover what it means to be both Chinese and British.

What I Have to Say 

I didn't like this book much. For one thing, I think Xing Li was written a bit too young for me. Perhaps a younger reader would like the way the books written better, but a lot of things just annoyed me. I would have thought a twelve year old would know what tablets look like and not have to put them in her mouth to find out they're not sweets. Also she lives in London so I don't see why she wouldn't know how to spell Trafalgar. But even if she does't know how to spell Trafalgar or Wagner, or any of the other words the author deliberately misspelled in this book,  I don't think they need to be written out like that. The voice was fine without misspellings and I still can't work out who she was meaning by "Bart". 

I also didn't really like the way that Uncle Ho was written. I can understand why the family would treat him like that, not knowing what to do about him and not wanting to seek advice, but the author didn't use a lot of tact when writing about him. He was constantly referred to as strange and there was rarely any sympathy for him from the narrator. I feel that authors have a responsibility to show that people shouldn't be seen in that way, regardless of how the characters act towards him. 

In short, this just wasn't the book for me at all. I think younger readers could enjoy it, but the treatment of mental health (or whatever it was that Uncle Ho suffered from) was really awful. 

My thanks go to Legend Press and Netgalley for providing me with this copy for review.