Oh this was delightful. Lo really digs into the geography of 1950s San Francisco and manages to make the obvious research she did (and what she writes about doing at the end) a core part of the book without it really being an Obvious Infodump? This is just such a book rooted beautifully, beautifully in place and I love it for that. She just does a great job of constructing the world and guiding you through it. 

Lily feels so real and has such complex feelings and I love to see her get to develop a community and be mentored to some small extent even by older queer people. The tension also of being both Chinese American and gay is really explored in a way that doesn't feel like you're being hit over the head with like Belonging Only Partly in Two Different Worlds But Never Wholly By Either; the racism by white queer people in the book feels very matter of fact and although we (and Lily) cringe at it, and it's clear it's Wrong and tokenizing, it also feels... period appropriate (and obviously of course there is ongoing anti-Asian racism in white queer circles that has to be addressed, but its form has transformed somewhat.) 

The end feels like a balance of kind of predictable but also nice. I would like to see if we could do this balance that doesn't require a family coming out, just because that's My Shit (not having to draw on current narratives about coming out etc.)

 

Overall, a really lovely book that I enjoyed very much. It never felt slow or particularly contrived, and I really recommend it!