This story plays from around August to December 1954.
The Prologue already starts incredible, with the Heroine - Lily Hu - questioning whether or not she looked like a Chinese girl should. She lives with her younger brothers, Eddie and Frankie, and her parents in Chinatown of San Francisco. All her life, Lily felt crushed by societal expectations of how a girl should behave, what a girl should want and where girls belong (at home, with a husband).
She starts to befriend Kathy, a girl from school with similar dreams and hopes. She’s the one that takes Lily to a Club for (among others) Lesbians. But one day when she comes home, Lilys Dad was interviewed by the FBI, because one of his patients is suspected to be a Communist. They took his citizienship papers, because Mr. Hu refused to admit to his paitient being Communist. Now, the family Hu has to be especially careful.
The story intertwines Lilys story carefully with historical points through the history of the U.S.A. and China and has different point of views, like one from Lily‘s mother.
The book really captures this feeling of uneasyness- when you know you‘re different but you‘re really afraid and I think it really showed Lilys struggle between choosing to express her self and fullfilling expectations.
„‚It‘s like you‘ve been told about chocolate your entire life but you‘ve never tried any, and then all of a sudden someone gives you an entire box, and you end up eating all of it, and you feel sick.‘ Kath shot her a quick glance. ‚You just have to get used to it-to having chocolate more often.‘“
In my opinion, Malinda Lo captured the feelings and fears of a person exploring their sexuality perfectly. The shame, that Lily has about feeling different and the excitement and liberation to share it with someone or see something that resonantes with you but at the same time the anxiety to being caught and the confusion about not feeling queer enough and on the one hand, wanting to have a community to identifie with but on the other hand feeling alienated from that community and like you‘re not enough.
It was kind of magical, reading all those feelings in a book and have them verbalized so beautifully.
