★★★★★ 4
A beautiful story of difficult times to be who you truly were!
Format: Kindle
”She felt as if she had finally cracked the last part of a code she had been puzzling over for so long that she couldn’t remember when she had started deciphering it. She felt exhilarated."
Meet seventeen year old Lily Hu, who lives in San Francisco in the 1950’s. She is Chinese American and dreams of going to college and working with her Aunt at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to assist with getting a rocket into space. Her and her friend Kathleen Miller, aka Kath, are the only two girls in their advanced math class. Kath dreams of becoming a pilot one day.
Over time, Lily finds ads in magazines of male impersonators and is fascinated. The ad slips out of one of her books one day while she is in the bathroom, and her classmate Kath finds it. She tells her that she has seen the male impersonator in the ad before, Tommy Andrews, at the Telegraph Club. She tells Lily she can take her if she wants to go and Lily agrees. She wants to explore the feelings she has that she cannot quite explain yet. Over time, Lily’s feelings for Kath change from that of a friendship to something much more.
Malinda Lo did an unquestionably, fantastic job with this YA historical fiction LGBTQ novel. She touched on a subject that many authors have not written about; being an Asian American teen that identifies as a lesbian in the 1950’s. This was during a time when being gay was considered illegal, where there could be no public affection shown between members of the same sex, and when gay members could not congregate in bars/clubs. It was also during a time when the government was looking for communists. One wrong move, and Lily and her family could potentially be deported just based off of who they socialized with. Lo did her research and it shows. I especially appreciated the “Author’s Notes” section at the end of the book which gave additional information and pictures. I believe this would be a great read for younger members of the LGBTQ community.
My only critiques would be that towards the middle of the book it felt a tad slow. I also wished there was more information on how Lily and Kath’s relationship turned out. In the epilogue, their relationship status is left open and I wished I knew more about what the future held for them.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2022
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