Book Review: You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know

You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know by Heather Sellers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Heather Sellers suffers from a rare neurological disorder called prosopagnosia or face blindness. She can’t recognize people by their faces. She wasn’t diagnosed until she was in her thirties – growing up she knew something was wrong with her but assumed she had some kind of mental illness. Adding to the confusion she experienced growing up was the fact that her mother was a paranoid schizophrenic and her father was an alcoholic who wore women’s underwear.

This book is a fascinating memoir. Heather does an excellent job of explaining her disorder in laymen’s terms and conveying the confusion she experiences on an everyday basis. Also, she describes her unusual parents so vividly, I felt like I could see and hear them. She does a great job of capturing her mother’s fluctuating moods in the manner in which her mother speaks.

I’ve always been fascinated with how the brain works and mental illness. This memoir is not only the story of Heather and her quest to make sense of her world but also a great character study of her parents, especially her mother. I found myself thinking about this book a lot and talking about it with other people more than I usually do with books I’m reading. I think it would make a great book club selection – there are so many facets of Heather’s life that would be great discussion points.

This is one of the best memoirs I’ve read, right up there with The Glass Castle. I highly recommend You Don’t Look like Anyone I Know.

(I received this book courtesy of the publisher and the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.)