Review: You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know

Title: You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know
Author: Heather Sellers
My rating: 3.5/5

Synopsis from Amazon:

Her mother was a paranoid schizophrenic who nailed shut the windows of her Florida home, draped sheets over the television, and believed she was the target of government agents. Her father was a gin-swigging cross-dresser who took swings at her with a cast-iron skillet. No wonder then that Sellers feared she herself might be crazy when she realized that she was unable to reliably recognize the faces of friends, colleagues, even family members when she saw them on the street. Eventually diagnosed with the rare neurological disorder prosopagnosia, otherwise known as face blindness, Sellers was relieved to learn she wasn’t mentally ill, yet struggled to find a way to cope with her disorder. With buoyant honesty and vibrant charm, Sellers paints a spirited portrait of a dysfunctional family and a woman who nearly loses herself in her attempts to deny their abnormalities.

My review:
I was really interested in this book right away when I read the description.  I love stories about crazy families.  The parts that interested me the most were when the author was talking about her prosopagnosia, or face blindness.  The book was really well written.  I really liked how the author was brutally honest about everything in her life, especially her unwillingness to believe that her mother was crazy and her fear that she would turn out crazy like her mother.  This book has been compared a lot to The Glass Castle and I think that is an accurate comparison.  The author is a very strong and inspiring woman, even more so for putting her whole life out there for the world to read.


***Disclosure: I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher.  The thoughts reflected in this post are entirely my own.