You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know

You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know

A True Story of Family, Face Blindness, and Forgiveness

    • 3.9 • 62 Ratings
    • $10.99
    • $10.99

Publisher Description

An unusual and uncommonly moving family memoir, with a twist that give new meaning to hindsight, insight, and forgiveness.

Heather Sellers is face-blind-that is, she has prosopagnosia, a rare neurological condition that prevents her from reliably recognizing people's faces. Growing up, unaware of the reason for her perpetual confusion and anxiety, she took what cues she could from speech, hairstyle, and gait. But she sometimes kissed a stranger, thinking he was her boyfriend, or failed to recognize even her own father and mother. She feared she must be crazy.

Yet it was her mother who nailed windows shut and covered them with blankets, made her daughter walk on her knees to spare the carpeting, had her practice secret words to use in the likely event of abduction. Her father went on weeklong "fishing trips" (aka benders), took in drifters, wore panty hose and bras under his regular clothes. Heather clung to a barely coherent story of a "normal" childhood in order to survive the one she had.

That fairy tale unraveled two decades later when Heather took the man she would marry home to meet her parents and began to discover the truth about her family and about herself. As she came at last to trust her own perceptions, she learned the gift of perspective: that embracing the past as it is allows us to let it go. And she illuminated a deeper truth-that even in the most flawed circumstances, love may be seen and felt.

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GENRE
Biographies & Memoirs
RELEASED
2010
October 14
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
368
Pages
PUBLISHER
Penguin Publishing Group
SELLER
PENGUIN GROUP USA, INC.
SIZE
758
KB

Customer Reviews

Ultra Maga Patriot ,

Thoughtfully written. Intriguing

Awesome book! I never knew that face blindness existed and the way it was explained/incorporated in a story… was magnificent!

rachizzle_dfw ,

Enlightening

Seller's experiences shed light on my own reality. I am so grateful that I now have someone to relate to, if only in black and white.

Dennis Smith ,

I loved this book!

My first test for a good book is whether I find myself caring for the characters. Heather is an amazing person, and I found myself caring very deeply for her. Another important test is whether the book contributes to my understanding of people, and the human condition. This is where this book soars. I believe I know more about myself, and the people around me, for having read this book. We humans have an amazing mind. This book showed me that we are amazing in ways I ways I had never imagined.

We struggle so to recall names, yet never give a thought to our ability to recall, as familiar, thousands of faces. As the book, and our own experience (upon reflection) makes clear, we recall faces in a way that is entirely different from the way we recall names. The unbelievable power of the human brain for face recognition is something I never thought about or appreciated until I read this book.

My final test for a really great book is whether having read it changes me forever. I will never see myself or others in the same way after reading this book.

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