A SMILE LIKE YOURS

A boy with face blindness navigates the trials and tribulations of love and university life.

Rhys Moore, a queer, white-presenting Welsh boy, is nervous about starting his first year at Thames Peak University in London. Not only is he anxious about making friends and passing his courses, he also struggles with prosopagnosia, a disability that means he can’t remember or recognize people’s faces. Luckily for Rhys, his flatmates are warm and welcoming—especially brown-skinned Londoner Malcolm Green. Rhys is immediately infatuated with Malcolm, but things get complicated when he learns that Malcolm has a long-distance girlfriend. As Rhys faces the classic struggles of a new university student, the romantic tension between him and Malcolm grows until it can no longer be ignored. Rhys’ experiences are exceedingly relatable, between his stress about exams, his anxiety in social settings, and his aching homesickness. The central queer romance is pleasantly sweet and fluffy. Malcolm’s arc of coming to terms with his biromantic asexuality is a compelling highlight, along with the representation of Rhys’ prosopagnosia. This graphic novel debut features charming illustrations, predominantly in muted shades of purple, that are filled with unique and engaging panel compositions. Thomas uses colors in a remarkably creative way to portray Rhys’ prosopagnosia, with characters going from monochrome to full color when he’s able to recognize them by using his identifiers, which include height, hair, skin tone, and voice.

A charming queer comfort read.