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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Barely any
The threat of exposure and its consequences in the Red Scare era; no physical violence
Language
Barely any
Mild language
Sexual Content
Some
A teen lesbian relationship; sweet and emotionally developed rather than explicit
Substance Use
None
No substance use
Emotional Intensity
A lot
The psychological weight of living in a time when who you are is criminalized; the dual threat of racial and sexual persecution
What this book is about
Lily Hu, seventeen, lives in San Francisco's Chinatown during the Red Scare and the Lavender Scare—a moment when being Chinese and being queer are both dangerous in different ways. When she discovers the Telegraph Club, a lesbian bar, and meets Kath, she enters a world that is both liberation and threat. Lo's National Book Award winner is a careful, emotionally precise historical novel about the specific experience of being multiply marginalized in mid-century America.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
A teen lesbian relationship in a historically dangerous context
The Red Scare and Lavender Scare as real threats to the characters
Reader Verification
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