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A review by elerireads
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
3.0
Solid, well-written YA. Interesting set-up and context exploring what it was like to be Chinese in the US in the 1950s, as well as lesbian culture and community at the time and how the two identities might intersect. I appreciated the notes at the end of the book explaining the context and giving a list of references too.
Despite being very different in many ways, it reminded me quite a lot of Tipping the Velvet. It could be purely to do with how strongly the protagonist is drawn to a male impersonator, but it's probably also to do with her development over the course of the book from being timid and confused about her identity and the world she's entering, to an INCREDIBLY assured character with a firm sense of self, and Lo manages to make it feel authentic which is no mean feat.
However, the actual plot of the book was ostensibly a love story, but that fell a bit flat for me. The love interest, Kath, was just not developed enough as a character - I got to the end of the book and felt like I still had no idea who she really was as a person. This makes the romance much less convincing and it was heavily reliant on "then Lily realised she was in love with her"-type statements in the narration to move the relationship along. Bizarrely, Kath was the only character for whom I really felt this was an issue - the best friend Shirley by contrast was a very interesting complex character. It made it very clear that Kath and the romance were only there as a vehicle through which Lily discovers her sexuality and identity and is introduced to the lesbian scene. In itself that's not an issue but I just think regardless of your reasoning for it, if you're going to make your main plot a romance then you need a bit more commitment to the romance.
Despite being very different in many ways, it reminded me quite a lot of Tipping the Velvet. It could be purely to do with how strongly the protagonist is drawn to a male impersonator, but it's probably also to do with her development over the course of the book from being timid and confused about her identity and the world she's entering, to an INCREDIBLY assured character with a firm sense of self, and Lo manages to make it feel authentic which is no mean feat.
However, the actual plot of the book was ostensibly a love story, but that fell a bit flat for me. The love interest, Kath, was just not developed enough as a character - I got to the end of the book and felt like I still had no idea who she really was as a person. This makes the romance much less convincing and it was heavily reliant on "then Lily realised she was in love with her"-type statements in the narration to move the relationship along. Bizarrely, Kath was the only character for whom I really felt this was an issue - the best friend Shirley by contrast was a very interesting complex character. It made it very clear that Kath and the romance were only there as a vehicle through which Lily discovers her sexuality and identity and is introduced to the lesbian scene. In itself that's not an issue but I just think regardless of your reasoning for it, if you're going to make your main plot a romance then you need a bit more commitment to the romance.