A review by nullpointerintime
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

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:

Spoiler

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.