Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

67 reviews

bashsbooks's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Last Night at the Telegraph Club is a love-letter to butch/femme relationships and to Chinese-American culture. Its setting of 1950s San Franciso comes to life under Lo's descriptions. And there is a subtlity to Lily's changing feelings - about both Kath and Shirley - that shows Lo's fine handle on detail. The flashbacks supply important cultural context, and the timelines keep everything straight (pun intended). The author's note at the end is also very informative.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Lesbophobia, Classism, Xenophobia, Outing, Sexual content, Misogyny, Toxic friendship, Deportation, and Alcohol

Moderate: War and Racial slurs

Minor: Cursing and Drug use

Note on the racial slurs: since the text takes place in the 50s, the author decided to use some terms that are now outdated or even offensive. She explains her decision to so in her author's note.

alice_clawford's review against another edition

emotional inspiring sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Lesbophobia and Homophobia

Moderate: Racial slurs

Minor: Drug use and Alcohol

tangleroot_eli's review

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

Beautiful and heartbreaking. I love how much is going on in this book. Lily doesn't just realize she's a lesbian and fall in love. She finds queer community and starts learning the culture. She thinks about future careers. She navigates her shifting relationship with her childhood best friend. She worries about her father being deported, and about whether her being gay increases the risk of that. She tries to balance her love for her family, community, and culture of origin with her love for herself and her need to be true to her own identity. She faces her family's homophobia and the mostly white lesbian community's racism and xenophobia. Other characters have lives independent from Lily's, and sometimes there's friction where those lives overlap.

This isn't just "realizing you're gay and falling in love"; it's  "realizing you're gay and falling in love while living in a world where everything else keeps happening."

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Lesbophobia, Sexism, Racism, Xenophobia, Homophobia, Misogyny, and Abandonment

Moderate: War, Sexual harassment, Alcohol, and Gaslighting

Minor: Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Drug use, and Gore

Red Scare/Lavender Scare

spookily's review

emotional tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Racism, Alcohol, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Outing, Toxic friendship, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Classism, Deportation, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual content, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, and Miscarriage

Minor: Gore, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Death, War, and Pregnancy

indeedithappens's review

emotional hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Lesbophobia, Outing, Homophobia, and Racism

Moderate: Xenophobia, Deportation, Drug use, Gaslighting, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Bullying, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Colonisation, Violence, and War

kappafrog's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Misogyny, Outing, Lesbophobia, War, Xenophobia, Sexism, Homophobia, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Racial slurs, and Racism

Moderate: Gaslighting, Deportation, Blood, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Physical abuse, Bullying, Miscarriage, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Forced institutionalization, Addiction, Drug use, Drug abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Medical content, and Mental illness

sourkiwi's review

emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

even though it’s definitely period accurate and things happen that would happen to queer people in the 50s, it’s not queer torture porn and it ends on an incredibly hopeful, romantic note

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Outing

Moderate: Alcohol, Sexual content, Racial slurs, Racism, Homophobia, and Lesbophobia

Minor: Deportation and Drug use

purplatypus's review against another edition

emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Lesbophobia, Homophobia, Alcohol, and Racism

Moderate: Deportation, Outing, Sexual content, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Drug use

raneyak's review

emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I don’t usually cry over books, but I cried over this one. This is a book I wish I had read earlier, before my first love and first heartbreak. If you are a young queer woman, I strongly encourage you to read this book because even though it is set almost 70 years ago, so much of it resonated with the experiences we still have today.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Outing, Homophobia, and Lesbophobia

Moderate: Drug use, Toxic friendship, Sexual content, Racism, and Alcohol

Minor: War and Forced institutionalization

lynxpardinus's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Lesbophobia, War, Xenophobia, Racism, Homophobia, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Sexism, Sexual content, Blood, Child abuse, Misogyny, Outing, Pedophilia, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Deportation, Mental illness, Alcohol, and Confinement

Minor: Drug use, Forced institutionalization, and Pregnancy

Pedophilia warning is just in case, for an adult woman behaving flirtatiously towards the teenage protagonist.