I read the audio version of this novel, beautifully narrated by Emily Woo Zeller and it became a favorite of mine that makes me want to read Malinda Lo’s other work. The story, the character development, the historic time and the setting (1950s San Francisco) are all gorgeously and truthfully portrayed. Lily, the US born child of Chinese immigrants is 17, in her senior year of high school and she isn’t interested back in a popular guy who wants to take her to a dance. While she ponders this invite and her saying she will think about it, Lily is in the girls room at high school. She connects with a classmate she knows only slightly, Kathleen Miller. Kathleen helps her navigate the issue and they start to talk sometimes and become friends. Lillys friends warn her against Kathleen, but she continues to befriend her.
We then follow Lily’s next few months that include going to gay bars as a friend only to Kathleen, while still not clear about her own identity and what she wants. Lily connects with the singers and older couples and has various experiences that gain her an understanding of lesbian culture in a slightly more out city than others but still very hidden. All the while she helping her best friend from childhood try to become a beauty queen in a local festival and fending off her questions about why she won’t date the guy who asked her out. The contradiction between the expectations and biases of Lily”s Chinese community and the vastly white gay culture of the women she is meeting and the chances she is taking develop beautifully in the story with lots of bumps in the road and in ways that make sense for a teenage girl coming to terms with her desires and who she is. It rings so true to life, when one knows what happened even 20 years later to my gay friends in high school and college and after in the 1970s and early1980s. It was a time when AIDS complicated what might otherwise have been a smoother transition from the closet to being open in public. People were out and more were accepted in general, but the constant cultural and family biases were also very pronounced. Recent stories of the 50s and 60s from people who once lived as well as current stories of those who still lived very closeted lives were common. A fun part and serious part of this novel involves the female singer who dresses like a man to perform and how she is celebrated or reviled in various settings and the tawdry lesbian books Lily learns about and reads clandestinely. Again, the ignorance, biases, love, concern, fear, uncertainty of the community and each character creates an amazing and hard coming of age story.
They Called me Bookworm 