As an adult, Heather Sellers discovers that she suffers from a condition called prosopagnosia, commonly known as face blindness. She is unable to recognize people by their faces; while she can usually identify them by features such as hair, ears, and clothing, it’s never reliable and she runs into her own husband thinking he’s a stranger. With her condition as a guide, Heather can start to process her difficult childhood and her relationship with her parents, both of whom have issues of their own. More importantly, Heather’s diagnosis comes to provide more clarity for her life, giving her a better understanding of who she is and how she can deal with her condition.
I’d never heard of prosopagnosia before reading this book, but it sounds very difficult. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like not to recognize people I knew walking down the street, or introduce myself to someone I already knew at a party – it’s just automatic for me and, clearly, for the many people who told Heather, “Oh, I’m really bad with names too”, ignoring her very real condition. I could feel her frustration and her certainty that she genuinely had this problem and I was relieved when she finally got a diagnosis and could begin to deal with what she did have. There is currently no cure for face blindness, but letting others know about the situation seems to help.
Tied in with Heather’s modern day story is the depiction of her childhood, which was far from ordinary. Her mother appears to be a paranoid schizophrenic, while Heather’s father has issues that are never fully understood throughout the narrative. Her parents live separately and as a child Heather lives with one and then the other and back again, switching schools on a yearly basis and struggling to make many friends. Her success to PhD level and eventual professorship at a university is simply astounding coming out of that and she deserves a lot of credit for sticking to her education, even when her mother handed her job listings for secretaries and cleaning women.
I did find the stories of her childhood very hard to take, simply because her life was so difficult. I felt very bad for her but to be honest, I was also just more interested in her modern day struggles with her condition, her marriage, and the fallout from her childhood rather than the events itself. As a result the second section of the book, which moves more away from childhood, struck a deeper chord with me and had me much more eager to read to the end. I think that Heather’s childhood is essential to understand her problems as an adult, but personally, I wouldn’t have minded an entire book on face blindness.
You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know is a moving memoir on a condition very few people are familiar with. The author is a strong woman with a difficult past to overcome that readers will come to empathize with and even admire. Recommended.
All book links to external sites are affiliate links. I received this book for free for review from the publisher.
I can’t imagine living with prosopagnosia. I’m bad enough with names and faces, but to truly not have the ability to remember faces would be horrible.
Beth F´s last post …Thursday Tea- Seeing a Large Cat by Elizabeth Peters
I love memoirs and this one sounds fascinating. I can’t imagine living with a condition like that and admire the author for all she has accomplished.
Wow, this is one of those things that is just so hard for my brain to process. I think that if I have one skill, it’s facial recognition. Without that, the rest of me is out of luck. To think about life without it is just sort of unbelievable. I’m with you in that I think I could read a whole book on the idea of face blindness though.
Pam (@iwriteinbooks)´s last post …BTT- Own Or Borrow
I was curious about this because of the prosopagnosia, but now I think I’ll skip it due to the sad childhood thing. I didn’t realise it was so memoir-y! hehe
Eva´s last post …Tar Baby by Toni Morrison thoughts
I have heard a little bit about this book and think it sounds fascinating. I can’t imagine living with this condition, and like you, I think it would be interesting to see how it affects Heather and how she learns to live with it. Fantastic review!
zibilee´s last post …Sea Escape Giveaway!
I have trouble recognizing people, too, but that’s mainly because I’m not reeeeally paying attention.
This sounds like a very difficult condition to live with!
Ths is one I’ve been wanting to read for awhile, but just haven’t found the time. I hope to get to it soon, thanks for the review!
S. Krishna´s last post …Book Review- All Mortal Flesh & I Shall Not Want – Julia Spencer-Fleming
What a strange condition! I had never heard of it before, but not I’m kind of curious about this memoir, it sounds fascinating.
kay @ Infiniteshelf´s last post …On My Wishlist – 7
Like you, I have never heard of this condition, but it truly sounds scary.
Stephanie´s last post …Book Review- The Long Journey Home
I think this condition was mentioned on an NPR Radiolab podcast- I love Radiolab and highly recommend you looking into the episde (which may have been called something like “Faces” but is probably not that straightforward. I think this would just be a really sad condition to have to deal with. The podcast discusses coping mechanisms, too, which are really interesting.
Aarti´s last post …Joint Musings- The Blind Assassin
Sounds like and interesting book. I’ll have to check it out.
I first heard about prosopagnosia from Nicole Camden’s novella ‘The Nekkid Truth’ (from antholog Big Guns Out of Uniform), which features heroine who has prosopagnosia.
Did Heather say anything about photographs? Can she still see faces in photos?
I’ve been curious about this book, so thanks for your review. I think the adult parts sound more interesting to me too — I’m not a huge fan of “difficult childhood” memoirs.
Kim (Sophisticated Dorkiness)´s last post …Review- ‘Margaret Mitchell’s ‘Gone With the Wind” by Ellen F Brown and John Wiley