Romance – The Library Cryptid

Release Date	January 19, 2021
Publisher	Dutton Books for Young Readers
Content Warnings	Anti-Asian racism, xenophobia, homophobia, dated language & slurs, depictions of war, deportation, graphic sex, familial rejection
Did I receive an ARC?	No
Links	Indiebound \| Bookshop \| Kobo \| Libro.fm \| Goodreads

She knew that what she had read in Strange Season was not only scandalous, it was perverse. She should feel dirtied by reading it; she should feel guilty for being thrilled by it.
The problem was, she didn’t. 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.
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo, pg. 42

It’s Lily’s last year of high school and she’s not quite sure where she fits in. Her best friend Shirley is doing her best to drag Lily in her wake, encouraging her to join the homecoming dance committee and help run Shirley’s campaign for Miss Chinatown. Lily, however, is more inclined toward math and science—and Kath, a girl in her advanced math class who wants to be a pilot. In this wonderful coming-of-age novel, Lily navigates emerging feelings about gender and sexuality all while dealing with what it means to be a child of Chinese immigrants in the 1950’s.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club is about a romance, but it is not a romance novel; which, since I am not a romance reader, was great for me, but may not be what someone else is looking for. This book was about Lily growing up and growing into her own skin, and figuring out her place in her relationships with her childhood friend, her new friend (maybe something more), and her family.

There were some aspects of this book that felt like they were left as loose threads and never tied up. In the beginning of the book, a fair amount is dedicated to the threat of Communist uprisings—or, more precisely, the threat to Chinese immigrants who are suspected of having Communist ties during McCarthyism. However, this plot point falls by the wayside as Lily finds more important things to occupy herself with. As a reader, this feels a little annoying, because we enjoy it when everything is tied up nicely and nothing is left hanging, but I found it to be reflective of life. Being gay is a huge part of Lily’s life, and it’s one that she has thus far kept locked away in a deep part of herself; in a way, letting early plot points fade away helps highlight Lily’s inner conflicts and priorities.

This book has layers and Malinda Lo has done an excellent job of making Lily’s story feel personal. It is a little predictable but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t pull at your heart strings. It’s not often that the written word can make me cry, but it happened here. The feelings on the page are so raw and I was really with Lily all the way through.

If you are a fan of LGBTQ+ stories, this is one to pick up. It is tough to read in some parts, especially if you are queer, but I really loved it and would highly recommend it.

Release Date	September 1, 2020
Publisher	Swoon Reads
Content Warnings	Misgendering, death, animal sacrifice mention, blood
Did I receive an ARC?	No
Links	Indiebound \| Bookshop \| Kobo \| Libro.fm

Your parents take you to the cemetery to visit your grandmother’s grave but because you’re bored, you decide to wander off. There’s not much to do so to keep yourself occupied, you go around lighting any candles you see that have gone out. Unbeknownst to you, you somehow manage to awaken a ghost—the problem? It now feels like it owes you something and follows you everywhere.
@writing-prompt-s, 2018

According to an interview with Aiden Thomas at the end of the audiobook, Cemetery Boys was inspired by a Tumblr writing prompt similar to this one—you summoned a ghost, and you can’t get rid of it, which is exactly what happens to Yadriel when he summons the ghost of Julian Diaz.

Yadriel’s family is a tight-knit community of brujx, who have gender-based magical powers: women are healers, and men help souls cross over to the land of the dead. Yadriel is determined to prove that despite being assigned female at birth, he is capable of continuing the work of his forefathers and ushering souls to the land of the dead. When he performs his coming-of-age ritual in secret and tries to summon the soul of his recently-murdered cousin, he instead brings back the spirit of Julian, who is loud and energetic and determined to stay in the land of the living, refusing to allow Yadriel to send him on to the next life.

This book has a lot of elements, but since the representation overlaps a lot with Thomas’s own identity, it flows very naturally. There are a lot of realistic descriptions of being trans, both positive and negative, but in the end this is a feel-good narrative. Although Yadriel faces hardships, he also has people in his life who accept him wholeheartedly and support him unconditionally. Sometimes it felt like a self-indulgent fantasy, but I don’t think that’s a negative thing; sometimes it’s nice to read a story where all the good things happen and everything turns out exactly like it should.

Although I think the plot meandered a bit, I stayed fully engaged with the story the whole time and really enjoyed seeing Yadriel and Julian bond. This is definitely a romance book, but it also had an interesting mystery to follow. I guessed portions of the ending by the middle of the book and was satisfied when it panned out as I expected, but Thomas still managed to throw in some twists that were surprising.

Thomas’s strengths lie with developing their characters and it shows. They manage to develop individual personalities even for background characters that only appear for a few pages, and they really make us fall in love with the characters who are central to the story.

In the end, I really enjoyed this book, which I’m really glad about because I have been wanting to expand my reading horizons and try some romance, and this fit the bill perfectly. I loved the characters, the romance didn’t feel forced, and there was enough extra plot to keep my interest—and, it’s a pretty fun premise. Who wouldn’t want to fall in love with a ghost?