Book Review: Do I Know You? by Sadie Dingfelder

I put Do I Know You? by Sadie Dingfelder on my TBR because I thought it looked moderately interesting. I had no idea it would be an early frontrunner for my top 5 non-fiction books for 2025 (other non-fiction books, let this inspire you to also be really good. You’ve got just over 11 months to dethrone Dingfelder).

Sadie Dingfelder made it to age 40 believing she was neurotypical. Sure, she would never notice friends who she saw on the street, and she once mistook a stranger in the grocery store for her husband because they were wearing the same coat, but doesn’t everyone do that?

No, not everyone does.

Dingfelder takes us along on her midlife crisis where instead of blowing up her marriage and buying a fast car, she participates in all sorts of studies to discover what’s up with her brain. Along the way, she maintains that she’s probably at the low end of the “normal” bell curve; science disagrees. I’m not spoiling anything when I say she discovers that in addition to face blindness, she sees in 2d, doesn’t really have an inner monologue, can’t visualize things, and has a very poor autobiographical memory.

For each of the conditions that she is eventually diagnosed with, Dingfelder gives us a bit of history, the current understanding, her experience with studies and tests, the work-arounds she’s developed in her own life, and discussions with the scientists studying the condition. She also shares some experiences of other people with the same diagnosis.

There were a few things I really liked about this book. One was that Dingfelder doesn’t treat neurodiversity like some great tragedy or something that should be stigmatized. She’s honest about some of the struggles she’s had and that others with similar diagnoses have experienced, but she also talks about the strengths, and just demonstrates beautiful self-acceptance about who she is and how her brain works.

And that’s the other thing I really liked: Dingfelder is a fun writer to spend time with. She’s curious. She has a sense of humor. She likes people. It would be really easy for a stranger to dismiss Dingfelder or someone like her as a “ditz” or as “absent-minded”, but her writing really shows the lie of this. She comes across as intelligent, thoughtful, funny, and kind.

In sharing her own experiences and those of others with these same conditions, Dingfelder sheds a light on how so much of our education system is set up to privilege certain styles of learning. Lessons that rely on rote memorization are more difficult for people who don’t visualize or have an internal monologue. This makes a lot of sense to me; as a child, I always found spelling easy, because I would just visualize how the word looked on page and then copy that down. How much harder would it have been for me if I couldn’t call up that mental image?

In listening to Dingfelder and the folks she interviews talking about their experiences in school, and Shannon Reed talking about her experiences as a Hard of Hearing student in Why We Read, and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ difficulties focusing on school as a kid touched on in The Message, I’m really struck by the one-size-fits-all approach to schooling that leaves little room for kids with invisible disabilities or different learning styles to thrive, unless their parents are willing and able to get them a diagnosis and/or ask for classroom accommodations.

How many brilliant, creative, funny kids are being left behind because we insist on trying to force everyone to be “normal” and learn in one specific way?

Anyway, this book was thought-provoking and entertaining. If you’re the sort of person who likes to think about, well, how you think and perceive the world, and how that might be different from how other people do, you’ll probably really enjoy Do I Know You?

CWs and TWs: Discussions of ableism, Nazi scientists, eugenics (it’s always eugenics!), medical tests, and brief descriptions of scientific experiments on animals (Dingfelder provides ample warning so you can skip ahead).

Source and Format: I borrowed the audiobook from Sno-Isle Libraries.

Reading Challenge Prompts

Nook & Cranny (Card 2): That’s Hilarious. I’m glad I stopped doing graphics where I list the prompts associated with a book, because at a glance, saying “That’s Hilarious!” about someone being diagnosed with a variety of neurodiverse traits would look pretty insensitive. But if you’ve read this review, you’ll realize that I pointed out that Dingfelder is a really funny writer. I often found myself smiling and chuckling while listening to this book.

Brick & Mortar: FREE. As with past years, unless a challenge explicitly says I don’t have to fill the free square, I’m going to assume I should fill it with a random book that didn’t fill another square, so here I am.

Reading Challenge Progress

Nook & Cranny (Card 1): 2 of 25, no bingos.

Nook & Cranny (Card 2): 5 of 25, no bingos.

Book Riot: 3 of 25.

Physical TBR: 0 of 12.

Brick & Mortar: 9 of 25, 0 bingos*.
*I’ve completed several of the non-reading prompts, hence the mismatch with the number of reviews!

World of Whimm: 3 out of 24, no bingos.