Review: Last Night At Telegraph Club

 I shit you not, .I finished this book at 1 am last night. I've been in such a bad  slump that it's taking me a wholeass day to finish a 300-400 page book when I used to do it within three to four hours in June. Sigh, I hope to actually return to my original pace now that I'm out of my June slump. It better be.

“That book. It was about two women, and they fell in love with each other.” And then Lily asked the question that had taken root in her, that was even now unfurling its leaves and demanding to be shown the sun: “Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

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.

QUICK THOUGHTS AND REVIEW: 4/5, I LOVE THE STORY, BUT TOO SLOW FOR MY LIKING.

Possible Trigger Tags:

1. Homophobia

2. Lesbophobia

3. Miscarriage

4. Misogyny

5. Racial Slurs

6. Racism

7. Use of homophobic slurs

WHAT DID I FEEL ABOUT THE  BOOK'S: 

1. Writing Quality: I kind of really love the story, but the writing style is certainly not up to my taste. It is smooth and nice and flows very easily, which is one of the major plus points of a book when I'm reading, but it feels really slow to me. I usually read medium to fast paced novels, so this novel definitely seemed a bit slow to me. I would have preferred if the sequences of events took place quicker, because it seemed like a lot of events didn't connect.

2. Character Development: Character development for me was pretty interesting I'll say.

Shirley: I started with her because even though she isn't the main character or even one of the main characters but she's playing a huge role in Lily's life as well as her circumstances. To be honest, I hate her. By the time I was on chapter 15, I wanted to strangle her with my bare hands till she was dead. I still hate her though, but after kind of like talking and seeing people's convos in the book club, it might be that Shirley's character is just a product of society and what she has been taught growing up. Though being a complete ass was her choice.

Tommy Andrews: Tommy is a male impersonator, and to put it simply in today's language- a drag king. I kind of really love the way that Tommy leaves her old personality behind just to break gender norms. And the fact that she is the first drag king that I have ever seen in the content of English Literature. We stan. Like seriously, I have read several books, none of them have the tiniest mention of a drag king. Plus a drag king bringing two people together? Now that is what we call quality content.

Kathleen Miller: I was quite disappointed with Kathleen's character development, considering that she's Lily's romantic interest throughout the story. We see her for a significant amount of time, but it was difficult for me to actually generate anything from her character aside from her aims and ambitions. It's understandable how Kath and Lily fall for one another, but I think I'd have liked to see more from Kathleen's side.

Lily: The main character of the story, the person who suffers from a literal existential crisis after she visits the Telegraph club. It is kind of interesting to see the world through her eyes, because clearly, post-war times are difficult for everyone. Plus being gay makes it even worse for her in a society that actually calls gay people deviates. It gotta hurt. Heck gay people are still called that today. But Lily being a very hooded and introverted character, she tends to keep stuff to herself until parts of her threaten to spill out. She has too much inside her mind to keep it and they often keep breaking out of her. I like her simply because I relate to her a lot, and I literally went through my sexuality and gender crisis when I was 15/16 ish. I feel you Lily.

3. Couldn't put it down- Ness: 6/10, I like it but it's not exactly that interesting to keep going.

4. Intellectual Depth: I don't know if this is my thinking or the actual play of words by the author but I could see the title in two ways. First, the most obvious one, hopefully, is like recounting what happened at the telegraph club. The word last here depicts the yester, so that's kind of reminiscing what happened last night as if it was something scandalous. The other way, last can be seen as the "end" of something, as in the last time they spend at the Telegraph club before it  gets raided.  Might be a token of their relationship or something. I couldn't quite catch it but there is something there.

Other than that, 1950s, the time where World War II ended and everything was just in a state of fucking panic and paranoia and everyone was just cautious trying to heal from the aftereffects of the war. Will not lie, the timeline that was there throughout the book did make me aware of what was happening during that time and to be honest, I felt really bad for Lily, Kath and all the other people from the Telegraph club. Even though it's legal for LGBTQIA people to assemble in groups, there is still that blatant homophobia that runs rampant throughout the society. To be very honest, there are quite a number of people who are against homophobes and use slurs whenever they have the chance. I will not claim to feel what Lily or Cath or Tommy felt like during that time, but I'll just like to say, you're not alone ladies. And I think it was brave of everyone in the book to actually accept their true identity instead of lying to themselves and deal with internalized homophobia.

5. Plot: To be very honest, I did understand that this book was about coming of age and coming to terms with yourself while dealing with the circumstances that legit try to convince you otherwise. I really follow the story of how Lily falls out with Shirley and she bonds with Lily and their friendship over the Telegraph club. I really get that, but aside that, I don't really see a great plot. Perhaps it might be that the whole story is character driven, instead of plot driven like I thought it was. I quite understood the timeline that was important but I didn't understand the flashbacks that took place. I did not quite understand their necessity in the story. They couldn't have been included in the story.

OVERALL, AN OKAY READ, I'll recommend it though.