Reviews with content warning for Drug use - Last Night at the Telegraph Club

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Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

75 reviews

thecriticalreader's review

4.75

emotional hopeful informative fast-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

Blurb:

Lily Hu is a high schooler living in Chinatown, San Francisco in 1954 whose life changes when she visits a homosexual bar, The Telegraph Club. As she learns to understand her own desires and identity, she develops a relationship with a female classmate. On top of the regular social pressures and strains that come with coming of age, Lily must navigate the complicated and complex pressures that come with being a queer Chinese girl with big dreams in 1954 San Francisco.

Review:

There are very few books that meet my stringent standards for historical fiction, but I’m delighted to say that Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo passes my scrutiny with flying colors. Lo obviously did her research; the extensive biography in the back confirmed what I knew from reading her writing. The details are immersive and luscious; there was not a single moment that I was drawn out of the story due to a historical inaccuracy or anachronism. Books like this one are the closest we will get to time travel, and for that they are special.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club would already earn a high rating just for its historical immersive quality, but Lo’s storytelling is equally skilled and compelling. The prose is accessible and easy to read, the plot is balanced and well-structured, and the characters feel like real people. Lo captures the nuances and imperfections of real-life circumstances, interactions, and relationships while crafting a focused, hopeful, and touching central storyline. I especially liked reading about the relationship dynamics between Lily and her longtime friend, Shirley. I did not want the book to end.

The only part of the book that I did not absolutely ~love~ is the chapters between sections from the point of view of Lily’s family members. I could not see how these vignettes added to the central story, and consequently, I found them less compelling. I think that Lo should have either put them at the end of the book as “bonus material” or left them out altogether.

Despite this minor quibble, Last Night at the Telegraph is a wonderful read on every level and deserves all of the recognition it receives.

The Run-Down:

You will probably like Last Night at the Telegraph Club if . . .

· You grew up reading the American Girl Doll historical books

· You appreciate slice-of-life storytelling

· You are curious about learning about life from a perspective not often seen in historical fiction

You might not like Last Night at the Telegraph Club if . .

· You dislike books that take time to describe lots of details to set the scene

A Similar Book:

Good Luck, Ivy by Lisa Yee. Although Good Luck, Ivy is written for a significantly younger audience than Last Night at the Telegraph Club, similarities between the books include:

· A Chinese American female protagonist who lives in twentieth-century San Francisco

· Themes of understanding your identity and following your passion

· Historically immersive storylines

Content Warnings

bashsbooks's review against another edition

5.0

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

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.

Content Warnings

alice_clawford's review against another edition

4.0

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

Content Warnings

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."

Content Warnings

spookily's review

4.0

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

Content Warnings

indeedithappens's review

4.0

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: Complicated

Content Warnings

kappafrog's review against another edition

5.0

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: Complicated

Content Warnings

sourkiwi's review

4.5

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

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

Content Warnings

purplatypus's review against another edition

4.5

emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

raneyak's review

5.0

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

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.

Content Warnings

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