Last Night at the Telegraph Club

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Malinda Lo: Last Night at the Telegraph Club (2021, Penguin Young Readers Group)

416 pages

English language

Published April 7, 2021 by Penguin Young Readers Group.

ISBN:
978-0-525-55525-4
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(5 reviews)

Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can’t remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club.

America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father—despite his hard-won citizenship—Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.

4 editions

Best book I've read this year

This is the story of 17-year old Lily Hu in 1950s San Francisco Chinatown and her slow and risky introduction into lesbianism. It's all embedded within real historical events, with so many references to things and places and events and people that actually existed (the Author's Note explains a lot of them - well-researched! and if you want to read up on them, there's even a bibliography list). I devoured this book with lots of joy. It's interesting and thrilling and capturing. Go read it!

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