Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - Last night at the Telegraph Club

Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Last night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

1068 reviews

teawitchontravel's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative inspiring sad tense slow-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

5.0

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ottercorg's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.5

It always feels strange for me to call a book that wrenches my heart "a delight" but that's what this was. From beginning to end, I delighted in getting to know Lily through the pages and see her grow into herself, no matter the cost. Young love, finding one's identity, taking risks, figuring out who your friends are - it's something we all have to go through, but the circumstances make it all the more difficult for our main character.

I truly love Lo's writing style, especially the callbacks to earlier moments via parentheses between text. It's a simple detail that I just ate up. I admire Lo for her commitment to research in writing this book, and then for sharing her findings after her story ended. I think I'll definitely find myself reading more of her books in the future.

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alexisvana's review against another edition

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fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.25

Really enjoyed this on a micro level; when I was zoomed into particular scenes and moments with characters, I was totally along for the ride. But on a macro level something just... wasn't working for me? There wasn't enough going on? The ending felt mega rushed after a suuuuper drawn out beginning/middle? I can't quite put my finger on it but it did result in me struggling to pick up the book.

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infusedchai's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

i’ve been on the search for more queer love stories and this was phenomenal. such a complex yet interesting story and watching lily and kath fall in love was so sweet. truly was on the edge of my seat throughout the entire novel.

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jcstokes95's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

YA historical fiction seems like a real challenge to pull off. You have to educate, build a distinct mood, make time-accurate characters that still relate to a modern teen and craft a coming of age narrative that is both engaging but realistic to the setting. In this particular bildungsroman, Lo is also weaving in the sweetness of young love without letting it overpower the self-discovery at the core of her story. In all, Lo is pulling off an impressive balancing act here. In the end, I felt I had learned so much about a period and perspective that I hadn’t previously imagined.

We follow a teenage Lily, as she begins to put a name to her own sexuality and faces what that will mean for her. The regular homophobia threatening her existence is only compounded by virulent anti-Asian, anti-immigrant sentiment, which means her reputation extends to her family as well. Despite this, she continues to explore a delicately portrayed relationship with her classmate Kath and dips her toes into the grimy, yet exhilarating would of the Telegraph Club.

Personally, I was much more invested in the parts where we were examining the relationship between Lily and her day-to-day counterparts, Kath, Shriley and her own family. I found a lot of the characters at the Telegraph Club grating, though I do think this is purposeful. And feel immensely accurate to that time in your life where you begin to realize the glamourous “adults” of the world are no wiser than you are. In this way, even the things that frustrated me, built a sense of realism. This was the biggest strength of Lo’s book. Every person seemed to act rationally within their own specific contexts. YA can sometimes be cursed with dei ex machina that create conflicts or resolve them. Lo instead keeps you grounded in Lily’s world.

For this reason, I also vastly appreciated the choice to not give Lily’s family the normal warm, fuzzy traditional YA reaction to coming out. It’s a painful read, the small attempts at empathy are still cutting. Even the most sympathetic character, Lily’s aunt, is moralizing and prevents Lily from living authentically. But, this makes the novel that much more compelling in the end, though when we get the epilogue, I found myself wishing we had seen some of the growth that happened off page. It felt a bit like a missing piece.

Similarly, while I appreciated the context around her parent’s journey, some of the flashbacks seemed awkwardly placed and didn’t always feel central or connected to the story. I’m not sure how I would have recut these to make a stronger impact, but it did sometimes create a bit of whiplash that took you out of Lily’s mind.

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amare_'s review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective 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

4.75

such a beautiful read!!! my only complaint is that the author often used a lot of descriptions of streets in san francisco, it gets quite confusing and difficult to picture if you're not from there. besides that I really liked the writing style. as someone who's the age of lily and kath, I thought their relationship was realistic. not too sexual in nature but also not completely clean. the pacing was great, the short chapters made me feel like I was making progress. had no filler chapters, it felt like each one had a part in moving the story forward. and THAT scene with tommy andrews and lily was SO HOT!!! I'm definitely gonna go buy her perfume so I can get ladies 🏃🏽‍♀️

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fizzreads's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective 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

4.5

i love u lesbians

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lilyaustin's review against another edition

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Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

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creolelitbelle's review against another edition

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emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

My rating greatly differs from the masses, but the slowness of this book had me consider DNFing multiple times throughout it. The audio narration is greatly done, but very little happened. Last Night at the Telegraph Club is a solid queer awakening story. It simultaneously fails at trying to be more while also needing to be more dedicated to that purpose and needing to develop more facets that are only flimsily introduced and barely dived into. Lily learns of her own lesbianism and deals with the closedmindedness of her friends and family during an umaccepting time period for anyone LGBTQIA. The snippets of history connections and family pasts of Lily's relatives that are offered could be beneficial somehow, but as written those pieces felt distracting.

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lu_23's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

you can see just how much research was made by author. i loved it and i love how realistic and interesting it is. i also loved the characters but i feel like i didn’t really connect with them, more like the idea of them.

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