Reviews with content warning for Lesbophobia - Last Night at the Telegraph Club

Reviews tagging 'Lesbophobia'

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

395 reviews

winter2001's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Content Warnings

olivia_piepmeier's review against another edition

Go to review page

informative tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Lo just knows how to tell a good story, so with that and the LGBTQ historical fiction topic AND it's Vermont Reads pick of the year, I wanted to at least give it a try. She does a great job describing the world Lily lives in. San Francisco feels like a character within itself. The little blips of experiences of her family were interestingly used to frame the reader on where Lily is coming from based on the experiences of her family. Particularly when this "don't say gay" mess is going around, this seems like a very timely book.

Content Warnings

cvbattum's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional inspiring sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This book was so much more than the lighthearted young adult novel I had been expecting. It's a raw, unfiltered look into a lovely young girl growing up in a world that doesn't take well to her. It's engrossing and rich, with a depth to it that hurts.

I think my main praise goes out to the prose. It's simple, but so incredibly effective at communicating several layers of emotions at once. It's written in a way that's easy to understand for younger people without shying away from horrific realities that will sometimes border on psychological horror. The message is subtle but couldn't have been screamed louder. It knows exactly what needs to be said, and what needs to be said without words. The world is so vibrant and lively that it could easily bleed into reality.

As a slightly older reader (25), this was still thoroughly enjoyable. It's a pure and raw depiction of love and growing up, and while it's aimed at a lower reading level, there's so much that goes unsaid between the lines which I'm sure can only be appreciated fully with a few more years. It's a cautionary tale if nothing else, and I feel like this should be read by anyone, period.

This comes highly recommended, and I will surely be reading it again as well.

Content Warnings

ghostlyprince's review against another edition

Go to review page

slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

Content Warnings

jashanac's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.25

I quite enjoyed this! It was a very quick read for me -- every time I sat down to read I had read 50 pages before I knew it, and always wanted to continue even if I couldn't at the moment.

This was a lovely, real, and honest coming-of-age story combined with a coming out story. With the added layer of what it was like to be Chinese American at a particularly tense time in American history for that community.

I thoroughly enjoyed the writing in this story; I found myself getting lost in the story time and time again, despite it not being some high-action, full-of-high-drama kind of story.

My only real qualm here is the backstory chapters we got for Lily's parents and her aunt. There were only a few of them, and I personally don't think they actually added anything to Lily's story that was being told. Her parents were very much background characters, and I don't think they needed to be more than that -- I don't feel that I needed to learn more about who they really were, or who they were when they were younger, etc.

This story ends on a hopeful note, and doesn't tie everything up with a neat bow, which I didn't mind.

Content Warnings