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

Did not finish book. Stopped at 57%.
There is so much that I loved about this book, but I kept struggling to pick it up, and it became too much of a slog. My main issue with this novel is that I am not a historical fiction fan and this focused too heavily on the story as a historical moment, rather than building out the characters into people who felt real. There were times when Lily felt more like a symbol of an Asian American during a particular time period than she did a real and complex person. A lot of work was put in to the historical accuracy of the novel and there was a huge emphasis placed on these major historical events running parallel to the lives of the characters, which in theory is cool. But then every scene felt like someone was in the background saying THIS IS AN IMPORTANT HISTORICALLY SIGNIFICANT THING. Rather than just letting it be a story of a teen being a teen. Even the characters seem to be viewing their own lives from a historical distance, which makes it feel less lived in.
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