Malinda Lo

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

This book takes place during the 1950s during the war. Lilly is our main character, and the book focuses on her identity, coming out, and the dangers of what that looked like for her.

This is a book that is based on a true story to a larger extent than I expected, and it ripped me in half more than I thought it would because of that and just how well it was written, every single page seemed intentional there was not any fluff, and I appreciated the way the book was formatted in a way to make the experience as far as between different time, zones and points of view more clear. There are visual timelines at the beginning of bigger sections that help you understand when subplots are taking place, when you are gaining more context, and then it’s time for the next part.

There are a lot of characters in this book and in “A Scatter Of Light” so just be aware of that — although I’m finding this to be more common than not. I struggle when there’s characters more than two or three so that might be a me thing.

Lilly is a she’s an inspiring astronaut scientist of sorts (she wants to go to the moon when she grows up and is really interested in science and space) and her mother wants a different life for her of getting married going to school and being this good Chinese girl. Why? Safety. She wants the best for her child, and when Lily is not what she expected and risks come with it, she does not react well. Lily realizes that she not only likes girls but that she wants to go to space, which is not for girls, and she likes her friend Kath. Spoilers ahead!

Kath also likes girls! Kath ends up sneaking her into the Telegraph Club because Lily saw an add for Tommy Andrews there and wanted to see them perform.

For me, this felt like it was mimicking people going to clubs under age in high school, which is very typical behavior. However, since it’s for a drag queen club, and for a lesbian, in the 50’s, things are literally dangerous. Please be aware that some racist terminology is also used in order to allow for the language to have full effect and to allow the reader to understand the culture of the time. There is a note at the end of the book that explains this further, as I initially was also taken back seeing these words, but they were very carefully placed, and it seemed not only intentional, but done so in a way that added to my understanding of the hostility of the time frame, rather than intending to cause offense.

Anyways, this is the first time Lily. sees Tommy Andrews. Hearing someone sing about girls kissing girls comes as a complete shock to Lily initially.
She initially really wanted to go to this club because she saw an ad for Tommy Andrews and so being able to see Tommy Andrews perform in person is huge to her, and there are a lot of racist, micro regression. She has to deal with in this new environment her friends end up sticking up for her anyways that she doesn’t expect it.

Lilly end up forming a relationship with her friend that she has a crush on and her friend ends up getting arrested from a raid at this telegraph club which was raided because there are drag queens performing there and there is propaganda being spread that drag queens are also perverts and pedophiles, and that they are victims of minors that have been Manipulated and taken advantage of since we have the full story from Lily’s point of view, we know that that is purely a lie and it ends up being a really shocking wake up. Call to Lilly because her friend ends up getting arrested. This was a part that really tore me in half, so please be aware if you do end up reading this book.

Lilly comes out to her and explain that she was also at this club the night it was raided and that her friend was arrested on top of this. There is conflict with one of Lily’s friends being potential suspect for the communist party on top of it, adding to the danger and hostility her family is experiencing from the government, which is making her mother extremely worried. Lily’s father has his papers taken away because he refuses to comply with revealing information on other individuals and the mother ends up taking this out on Lily and sending her away to live with her grandma until things calm down because the environment that Lily is in is not safe for her to be in.

This book ends on a bit of a cliffhanger with her saying goodbye to her, which rips me in half on top of this we have this extreme conflict with the parents over identity and this scared moving to a new city with grandma not a great time vibe so this book was very emotional for me and I really enjoyed it.

I think I connected with it more than I thought I would because, there is a lot of pushing back against norms of fitting in and trying to assimilate.

I personally have never fit in and while this is a completely different scenario, I really related to some of the scenes of going into a department store and having there be conflict over what that appearance looks like in having their conflict over identity to the point where it can get abusive in controlling clothing, and having that be a generational trauma type of thing of how you present yourself to the public and, what comments do you get if you pick something outside of those items was very validating for me but also very triggering so I loved this book because it hit some spots, but I also loved it because there were such depth to it that I don’t typically expect from romance books as bad as that sounds This one hit me really hard and I think going into romances in the future.

I’m going to be aware, especially coming of age that they’re going to be really precious moments of identity development that I will most likely find myself relating to.

I think this book altered my brain chemistry a little bit and helped me open up more to Young Adult books in general that are in the romance section because I always felt weird about picking up Young Adult romance books just due to the romance aspect of it.

5/5