oh ok. guess i’ll just die then.

this book is. so sad yet so thrilling. depressing yet hopeful. and also incredibly gay. i love gay people. 

the writing in this book is positively superb, especially when describing lily’s inner thoughts. i truly felt so immersed in lily’s character, so much so i almost felt like i was actually there with her. the writing about her inner turmoil being gay, these new feelings she has, the juggling of her life with the chinese american community versus her place in the queer community…. beautiful. reading about the intersectionality between being asian and queer, whilst also sprinkling some historical context and tensions in the background? chefs kiss. 

can i just say again how much i loved lily. god she was so well written. i really loved seeing her character development, and she was incredibly likeable and relatable. the other characters were ok… i mean ofc i loved my girl kath & everyone at the telegraph club, but nobody else seemed to pop. shirley kind of did i guess? but everyone else kind of felt a bit one-dimensional. defo not flat! but idk i could tell they were side characters. i dont know if that makes sense. 

another thing with this book is because its a bit long, sometimes it felt a bit repetitive. and honestly i only had this issue in regard to lily coming to terms with her sexuality. not even the conflict between being asian & queer, just her accepting she was queer in the first place was repeated a bit too many times. honestly that’s the only circumstance it annoyed me in, but i mean i can’t lie and say after the halfway point of this book i was lowkey kind of sick of it. lily ruminate on something new regarding being a lesbian!!!!! maybe let’s start instead ruminating on if you are into butches or femmes!!! idk give me some variety my girl!!!!

i will say tho . fuck i loved this. i cried at the ending. i cried at the epilogue. and what about it. as much as i can bitch about minor little things in this book, the ending got to me. i just starred at my wall for a while coming to terms with this book. i think it hit even harder for me imo because although this book is fiction, for many people it was their reality. especially after reading the authors’ notes i just sat and went “Fuck”. because like yeah holy shit if i think being a lesbian is hard in 2025….. a lot of people found it 10x harder seventy years ago. it sounds stupid that i ‘realised’ that fact reading this book, but it’s more so that it really sunk in for me. something something autism makes it harder for me to put myself in someone else’s shoes until i literally live the experience myself so by reading about lily’s life i felt like i was truly watching this happen to her and it fully cemented to me how privileged i am by being queer in modern society something something. especially with seeing online everyone slowly moving towards being right-wing…. idk this book just hit me like a tonne of bricks. i probably sound incredibly naive here but hey i am owning it.

thank you malinda lo for the many book recs at the end you best believe this book has inspired me to take an interest in queer history 🙏🙏🙏  and thank you for the tears