Reviews - Last Night at the Telegraph Club

Reviews for Last Night at the Telegraph Club, by Malinda Lo

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caidyn's review

emotional hopeful fast-paced

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

5.0

Ugh, wow. I read this book in two days and easily could have read it faster if not for work. It was an amazing read! I loved Lily's journey and how multifaceted the book was. Racism towards Chinese folk because of communism. Homophobia because, well, this is the 1950s. The gender side of things mixed with race, about Lily being a "good Chinese daughter" versus living how she wanted. It was so good and I absolutely adored this book. Easily a favorite for the year already!

Content Warnings

mannifran's review

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challenging emotional hopeful 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? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

dezzy's review

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challenging emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

nullpointerintime's review against another edition

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5.0

This was wonderful! Pure historical fiction (without some sort of alternate history angle) isn't typically my thing, but I was willing to give it a shot mainly because it's gay.

This managed to both paint a fascinating historical picture of queer women in San Francisco in the 50s while also being a very sweet coming-of-age romance. I knew some of the history of queer San Francisco from documentaries and a couple lectures in college, but most of that focused on men, so this perspective was really valuable.

Spoilers for the general nature of the ending: Given its setting, I was a little worried that the ending would either be tragic or unrealistically happy. YMMV, but I think it struck a good balance between hopeful (no one dies or ends up with a man) and realistic.