The Last Night At The Telegraph Club By Malinda Lo

San Francisco, where secrets simmer beneath the surface and forbidden love ignites. The author of the book The Last Night At The Telegraph Club is Malinda Lo. The Last Night At The Telegraph Club is a novel about Lily Hu, a teenage Chinese American who discovers her identity and explores her sexuality while navigating through McCarthyism, ethnicity, and the Lavender Scare. Malinda Lo’s message revolves around themes of identity, self discovery, and the pursuit of love and acceptance despite societal expectations and prejudices. Through Lily’s journey we learn about the complexities of being a queer Chinese American woman in the 1950s, a time period where finding your true self was a struggle, a time when people suppressed individuality. The author encourages readers to embrace their

Another quote that reinforces this idea would be, “Lily felt a queasy, self-conscious confusion. It was wrong to stare, and yet Tommy was onstage and they were supposed to look. It would be rude not to watch.”. This character is important because she portrays a crucial role in what it was like to grow up in 1954 as a queer Chinese American, letting us know her struggles and her dreams. The qualities that make her a relatable character to readers are her journey of self discovery and her yearning for acceptance from everyone around her. Lily’s culture and family values can contribute to readers with diverse backgrounds who struggle with self discovery and acceptance. The main conflict in the story is self discovery. This type of conflict would be character vs. society. I say this because during the time period the book takes place in, it was a conservative time in American society where being of different race and being a part of the LGTBQ+ community was dangerous. Shirley's eyebrows drew