411 pages
Published 2021
Read from September 14 to September 28
Rating: 4 out of 5
I adore this book.
It draws you in like the soft cushions of a couch at a home where you first learn who you really are, among people who love the way you do. I adore Lily and Kath, our main characters, who brave ostracism and jail in search of their truest, best selves, and discover love along the way. I adore how precisely and poignantly Lo describes the way first love feels, the unfamiliar ache and vulnerable need, the protective tenderness. I adore how her 1954 San Francisco feels tangible, its fog and its drifting aromas and its busy streets tenderly realized.
This month has been an unexpected struggle, with a flooded apartment on top of the general unending stress of the last three years. My attention span has struggled as well. Telegraph Club's prose is smoothly beautiful, never flashy but always wrapping you up in its story. Nonetheless I found myself almost having to relearn (for the third or fourth time this year) how to pay attention to a narrative and stick with it instead of picking up my phone for a quick spin of dopamine roulette. None of which reflects on the book, which is a treasure. But it does make it even harder to compose any kind of cogent thoughts in this review.
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