Last Night at the Telegraph Club - Malinda Lo

National Book Award
 

Okay, now this is a historical drama that I can get behind. Maybe it's just from years of teaching the historical importance behind the allegory of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, but I felt the stakes of the characters in this novel. This novel had a certain "vibe" to it. The topic of Lily's father being deported also felt extremely relevant to recent events. I thinking knowing the context behind the time period added a a deeper layer to my enjoyment of this book. I think there was so much going on in this book that the tension became overwhelming (in a good way). For example, as a straight, white man in his late twenties, the microaggressions towards the main character made me uncomfortable as I listened to this in my car. I also like that the characters got to have some really cute moments together as they started to explore their feelings; it showed that there's some light in dark places. 

A few years ago, I taught a student that would finish books in like, two days. This feels like one of the books she would have recommended me. While I feel like adding all the labels of the main character, it makes it feel like this book has an agenda to push, but when you combine all the different characteristics of Lily, a Chinese-American teenage girl from the 1950s who discovers that she's a lesbian, she just feels more like a real person than anything else. I think this would mostly appeal to young adult girls, but I would recommend this one to most students that were interested in a human-driven drama. 

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