December Reads: Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo and The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros

I'm a bit behind on reviewing some of the books I read in November and wanted to quickly introduce two YA novels I read for the Iowa High School Battle of the Books 2023. High school kids form teams, read a book, take a quiz, and it all ends up with a "battle" in March, 2023 between teams, along with a virtual meeting with one of the authors of the 28 books chosen this year. 

My role, as a librarian, was to pick a book I want to read and after reading it, partner with another Iowa librarian to discuss the book, create questions for the students, and get those in before the deadline in mid-December. 

I, of course, decided not to pick one book, but three. That's what I do. Hey, no problem reading three, I thought. Plenty of time to do it. Sure. no problem. 

I'll just say the only thing that saved my butt on this was getting sick and being home on the couch for most of a week. When I wasn't feeling miserable, I managed to read two of the books. I'll review the third book, The Girl from Widow Hills, in another review. 

Both Last Night and The City Beautiful are YA historical fiction and wow, did the authors hit it out of the park. I love historical fiction, and I haven't found a lot of YA historical fiction that gets me excited to read it. Until I picked these two novels from the list. I'm so glad I did. 

Last Night at the Telegraph Club takes place in 1950's San Francisco, specifically Chinatown, during the Red Scare. Lily Hu is 17 and is feeling confused. She's not interested in boys, is fascinated by the idea of space, and has budding feelings about another student-Kath Miller. Lily and Kath are worlds apart, but share similar interests in science and someday working in that field-where women are not very welcome. Lily is fascinated by the Telegraph Club, a club where a women gather to drink and watch impersonators. It's known as a lesbian club, and while San Francisco has a growing gay underground, it is definitely not something the officials want and raids are pretty common. Kath invites Lily to the Telegraph Club, where Lily realizes she's not alone in her feelings and she discovers who she really is--which goes against everything her conservative Chinese family believes in. 

Does Lily stay true to herself, or bury her feelings for Kath? It's a difficult choice, since she knows admitting the truth to her parents will mean alienation from her family and a scandal in the Chinese community. This is a story about telling the truth, being true to yourself, and living your life even when it would be easier to stay quiet. Lots of historical background, Chinese culture and family ideals, as well as the excitement of a country on the verge of incredible growth post World War 2.

The City Beautiful knocked my socks off. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was drawn to it because it takes place during the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. 

Alter Rosen is a young Jewish immigrant living in the tenements of Chicago, sharing a room with four other young men and barely scraping by. He's working hard to save money to bring his mother and two sisters over from Romania. The Jewish community is large, with many immigrants from Romania, Russia, and Ukraine. 

Someone is killing young Jewish men, and the authorities could care less. When one of Alter's roommates, Yakov, is found murdered at the World's Fair, Alter is devastated. Helping the Jewish elders ritually prepare Yakov's body, Alter experiences horrifying visions that appear to come from Yakov's spirit. Alter becomes possessed by Yakov's dybbuk. Alter must find who killed Yakov, or he will slowly lose his soul and become fully possessed by the dybbuk. 

Wow, this novel was so rich in Jewish history, mythology, and ritual. There was so much going on politically in 1893 Chicago. The corruption was out of bounds! This novel, told from the perspective of a Jewish immigrant is powerful. It took me a bit to get into the novel, but wham! it grabbed me and I couldn't put it down. Alter and his companions are racing against time to uncover Yakov's murder (is he a victim of a serial killer?) before the dybbuk takes Alter over completely, but there is much, much more to the story. It unfolds and takes you to unexpected places. 

Both of these novels have LGBTQ themes and are rich in historical detail. Both are about the immigrant experience in the U.S.; sad to say they echo modern headlines. Both novels were so, so good. I am glad I stumbled upon them and have already recommended The City Beautiful to a few friends.  Last Night at the Telegraph Club has a sequel of sorts that I am eager to read ( it takes place 30+ years after). Both are available in paperback, audio, and ebook. 

Rating for The City Beautiful: 5/6

Rating for Last Night at the Telegraph Club: 5/6

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December Reads: Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo and The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros

Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown

I zipped through this novel in a day--my first of 2020. It read very quickly, and I had a hard time putting it down. 

Why was it so compelling? I'm not sure. It's a dual storyline, between two women: Nellie in 1956, and Alice in 2018. Both are living in the same home, and married. Nellie is married to a man who swept her off her feet, and she quickly realizes he's not a nice man. Not nice at all. He wants a wife who is pretty, looks perfect all the time, cooks, cleans, and has babies. He's not afraid to use some physical force to keep her in line. 

Alice is a modern woman, who recently left her job in New York City under a cloud--although she's kept that bit of information from her husband Nate. He thinks she quit. Nate wants to move out of the city and start a family in a home set in the suburbs. Alice, very reluctantly, agrees. She's a big city lady, and used to working a lot. Nate makes enough money that she can stay home and write her novel. Alice and Nate buy the home Nellie had lived in 60 years before, and even though it needs a lot of work to modernize it, Nate loves it. Alice, not so much. While rummaging around in some boxes in the basement, she finds an old cookbook that belonged to Nellie. It's safe to say Nellie's spirit inhabits the home, and Alice slowly begins to immerse herself in the role of a housewife who gardens, cooks (out of Nellie's cookbook), and yes, even starts smoking again. She claims it's all for research on her novel, but wow, she starts to take on a lot of Nellie's personality. 

The novel moves back and forth between the two women. I liked Nellie quite a bit. She's trapped in an abusive marriage with very few options. Her friendship with the woman next door is really the only thing that keeps her sane. That and her gardening; she loves to garden and is very good at it. She thinks about her choices and regrets marrying Richard. Her life looks grand from the outside, but inside it's deeply troubling. 

Alice. Sheesh. At first I liked her, but as the story moves along, I found myself annoyed with her. She lies, and keeps lying and makes a heck of a lot of bad choices. She doesn't want to have a child right away, and can't tell Nate how she feels. Instead she's sneaky, and that leads to big issues. She has never come clean to Nate about her job, and why she was fired. She's taken up smoking, but hides it from Nate. She's so unhappy, but instead of communicating that to her husband, she just gets more resentful and keeps adding lies upon lies. 

Both women resent their roles as "housewives". Nellie really just wants to be alone with her garden. I'm not quite sure what Alice wants. I found Nellie's story to be much more interesting. While I wasn't surprised at what happened, it was fun to watch it unfold, along with Alice's dramas. I felt sorry for Nate. He seemed completely lost and clueless. He also made a really dumb mistake, but he was genuinely confused as to who Alice was becoming. My gut tells me that Nellie's spirit was influencing Alice, but it's never stated in the novel. 

I guess you could take this as a novel about women fighting to be themselves in a marriage, figuring out who they are, and working towards that happiness. Or, like me, you could just read the novel as a clever tale of one woman's revenge on an abusive husband. I was dissatisfied with the ending, because Alice and Nate are kind of left hanging. I would have liked to know more about Nellie after 1956. 

I think this would make a good book club selection. Plenty of themes to talk about, and I'm sure readers will either really like Alice, or really dislike Alice. 

Rating: 4/6 for a tale of two women, living decades apart in the same house, and the false lives they lead. Not a thriller, but an interesting look at what is expected of women as wives and mothers, and the stress it can cause a woman to try and fit into those molds. 

Available in hardcover and ebook.

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Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown

Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis

I had not heard of Rachel Hollis before this book was published, and I began to see other women reading it and connecting to Rachel's message. I decided to buy it, and I'm glad I did because I underlined and starred passages that particularly resonated with me. 

Rachel talks about the many lies we tell ourselves, and how they can damage our self-worth. We spend so much time comparing ourselves to other women, and think everyone has it all together in a perfect life. Rachel is here to tell us what we already know: it's just not so. We know this, she knows we know this, but sometimes we have to be reminded over and over again until it sticks. Rachel is pretty brave in telling her story; from a young girl who finds her brother after he commits suicide, to a woman struggling through her early relationship with her now husband; to her missteps and feelings of being a walking disaster. She frames each chapter with her own experience, and every "aha" moment that lead her farther down the path of self-acceptance and ultimate badass. 

Rachel believes we all need to be our own heroes. We have lived through difficult times, and yes, some really great times. All of those create who we are, but how we use those building blocks matters. Don't let anyone else determine your journey: you determine your journey, and your story. You determine how to rise above the setbacks, the tragedies. You write your own story--you are your own hero. No, this isn't easy, and yes, it can take months or sometimes years--but start now. Set goals, create a vision board that you see every day to remind yourself of your dreams. Keep that focus. Learn from mistakes. Believe deep in your soul that you are strong enough, smart enough, capable enough. And dammit, if you don't feel that, take the steps to get to it. Have your moments of crying into your coffee cup, but then get your ass in motion and make the changes. 

I usually don't read many books that would be labeled as self-improvement. Rachel's book is more of a confessional and a "this is what I've learned" approach. It wouldn't have felt as genuine if she hadn't revealed some pretty private parts of herself and her experiences. In making herself vulnerable, she turned what could have been an ordinary "you can do it!" book into something that spoke to me. Parts of it, of course, don't apply to me: I'm not a mom, and I'm not a wife, so I don't have those joys and struggles. But I do have the struggle of being a single woman, building a career, and feeling at times that I am not smart enough, not strong enough, and not knowing what I want-or knowing and struggling to find my way to it. But I will continue to savor every small victory I achieve, knowing I did that-I dreamed it, I worked hard, and I achieved it. Whatever it may be, big or small, it matters. 

I think every woman, no matter what age, should read this. You may recognize yourself in some of Rachel's chapters, and realize you've been rocking your best life for years. Or you may realize the heaviness on your shoulders isn't necessary, and you have the power to change it. Instead of looking at what keeps you down, look at how to get up and dump that crap. 

Rating:  5/6 for an empowering read that will have you reflecting on choices you've made, goals and dreams, and how you feel about yourself. 

Available in hardcover, ebook, and audio.

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Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis