📗 Last Night at the Telegraph Club

To: (123) 456-7890 -- From: Raven

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Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

Rating: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Genre: Historical fiction, lesbian romance

If you're looking for a book that encompasses both romance and history in a skillful and artistic way, read Last Night at the Telegraph Club. This book is one of my favorites, following a young Chinese-American girl named Lily Hu through her senior year of high school in San Fransisco. 

Telegraph Club is set in the 1950s, and thus deals with issues such as communism and deportation. The author, Malinda Lo, weaves the impact of communism on Chinese-American families into her story to give readers an understanding of not just the characters but the time they are living in. Lily's environment drastically affects the course of her story; her life is shadowed by the threat of deportation from affiliating with suspected communists, and her culture's views on LGBTQ+ people are a consistent inner battle.

Throughout the book, Lily discovers the "secret" LGBTQ+ world in San Fransisco with a girl from her school, Kathleen Miller. The two frequently attend a local nightclub, the Telegraph Club, which is the setting for many of Lily's self-discoveries as a budding lesbian. Lily meets various LGBTQ+ people at the Telegraph Club, crafted by Lo with complex personalities and lives that further Lily's self-discovery while also exposing readers to the diversity of the community.

Telegraph Club is unlike many books I've read before in the way it tackles two completely different social issues through the same narrative. Lo's use of scene breaks and flashback chapters gives the story a puzzle-like feeling, but the novel is structured well enough that all the pieces fit together into a complete story. No matter how much you know about LGBTQ+ history, Telegraph Club is a thrilling lesson on the challenges many LGBTQ+ people faced, with specific attention to Chinese-Americans. As I am not Chinese-American myself, this book gave me a very different and valuable perspective on being LGBTQ+. No one's journey will be the same, and I feel that it's important to gain as many viewpoints as possible so we can better understand the world around us.

You can find Last Night at the Telegraph Club on Amazon or possibly at your local library (depending on your area's views of LGBTQ+ topics). If you've read this book, please leave a comment with your review! Happy reading :)

--Raven