A Scatter of Light

August 15, 2022
During the summer before college, Aria discovers her sexuality. It is 2013, and Aria West is in Woodacre, California, a small town in Marin County, staying with her widowed paternal grandmother, Joan, an artist who is White; Aria's opera singer mom is a Chinese immigrant. This wasn't the summer Aria had in mind: Her plans were derailed after a boy took topless photos of her at a party and posted them online. Instead of staying on Martha's Vineyard with her best friends, she is now under the care of her grandma. On her first day in town, Aria meets Steph Nichols, her grandma's gardener, a heavily tattooed, gender-nonconforming singer/songwriter who reads White. From the Dyke March to the Queer Music Festival in Golden Gate Park, Aria explores the Bay Area queer scene along with Steph; Steph's girlfriend, Lisa; and their friend Mel. Over the course of the summer, Aria finds her attraction to Steph deepening, a mutual feeling complicated by Steph's relationship with Lisa. In this stand-alone companion to Last Night at the Telegraph Club (2021), Lo updates readers on Lily and Kath's love story through an email from Aria's mom, who is related to Lily, and a news article on the legalization of same-sex marriage in California. The plot and setting are richly detailed, but readers will wish for deeper exploration of the characters' emotional lives, which would have strengthened the romance and family drama. A contemporary queer coming-of-age story steeped in pivotal events. (Fiction. 14-18)

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Starred review from August 22, 2022
This raw and bittersweet story by Lo, a 2013-set standalone companion to Last Night at the Telegraph Club, follows MIT-bound 18-year-old Aria West, who’s anticipating spending her summer visiting friends on Martha’s Vineyard, like she does every year. But those plans are canceled when a classmate circulates topless photos of Aria online just before graduation. Disappointed and blaming her for the photo leak, Aria’s parents send her to stay with her paternal grandmother in “the remote woods of Marin County” outside of San Francisco, where she immediately connects with gender-nonconforming singer-songwriter Steph Nichols. Led by Steph, Steph’s possessive girlfriend, and their acerbic friend Mel Lopez, Aria immerses herself in San Francisco’s joyous LBGTQ culture. Aria’s enthusiastic exploration of her sexuality, her growing feelings for Steph, and her discovery of old photos, videotapes, and papers from her divorced parents’ complicated history turn what she assumed would be a lonely summer in exile into a transformative experience. Aria’s vulnerable narration is an intensely driving force in this expansive tale of yearning, self-discovery, and first love. Aria is white and Chinese; Mel is Latinx-cued; most other characters read as white. Ages 14–up. Agent: Michael Bourret, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.

September 15, 2022
Grades 9-12 Aria didn't think she'd be spending the summer before college stuck at her grandmother's house instead of being with her friends. But after pictures of her (taken without her consent) are spread online, her parents decide she needs a chaperone. As the summer unfolds she begins to experiment with visual art in her grandmother's old studio and meets another young woman, Steph, who makes her feel things she'd never before considered. Lo follows her Printz Honor-winning Last Night as the Telegraph Club (2021) with a new, beautifully written companion story about self-discovery that lightly touches upon Lily and Kath's long-lasting relationship. Aria's discussions with her grandmother and Steph about what it means to want to create and what defines art are both profound and unpretentious. The exploration of her queer identity reads as both timeless and wonderfully early 2010s, with Tumblr used as a resource for new vocabulary. A Scatter of Light is not one but many love letters--to art, to first crushes, and to friendships that span decades and ground you while letting you grow.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 1, 2022
The summer before heading to MIT, in 2013, eighteen-year-old Aria finds herself banished to her artist grandmother's remote Northern California home after an unfortunate revenge porn incident. There she meets Steph, a twenty-something lead singer in a queer band. Their physical attraction is immediate, even though Aria has always dated boys and Steph has a girlfriend. Suddenly all aspects of Aria's identity seem to be in transition. Is she gay or straight? An artist or a scientist? A dutiful daughter and friend or the kind of person who would cheat with someone else's partner? When tragedy strikes, Aria realizes that asking the questions is more important than having the answers, and that life, as her grandmother Joan wisely observed about making art, "could be extremely frustrating, but the point of it was the process." This deeply perceptive bildungsroman thoughtfully explores several absorbing topics, but first and foremost it is an intimate, exhilarating story of first love. It's billed as a companion novel to Lo's Last Night at the Telegraph Club (rev. 1/21), and readers will be delighted to discover the connection between Aria's and Lily's stories. Jennifer Hubert Swan

(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from November 1, 2022

Gr 9 Up-Exiled to spend the summer with her grandmother in California after an incident at a graduation party, Aria Tang West expects a summer of boredom. Enter Steph Nichols, her grandmother's gardener, who befriends Aria and brings her into her circle of friends and the queer community to which they belong. The more time Aria spends with Steph, the more she questions her identity. Using the summer of 2013, when same-sex marriage became legal in California, as the backdrop, Lo here presents an excellent coming-of-age and coming out story. Characters are complicated and messy but in a realistic and relatable way. The story is driven by Aria's truthful narration, which is beautifully reflective of an 18-year-old at that time. Aria is biracial (Asian and white), with most other characters defined or cued as white. Although not a sequel to Last Night at the Telegraph Club, there is a glimpse into Lily and Kath's life since the events of that novel. VERDICT A must-have for any library collection.-Amanda Borgia

Copyright 2022 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2022
The summer before heading to MIT, in 2013, eighteen-year-old Aria finds herself banished to her artist grandmother's remote Northern California home after an unfortunate revenge porn incident. There she meets Steph, a twenty-something lead singer in a queer band. Their physical attraction is immediate, even though Aria has always dated boys and Steph has a girlfriend. Suddenly all aspects of Aria's identity seem to be in transition. Is she gay or straight? An artist or a scientist? A dutiful daughter and friend or the kind of person who would cheat with someone else's partner? When tragedy strikes, Aria realizes that asking the questions is more important than having the answers, and that life, as her grandmother Joan wisely observed about making art, "could be extremely frustrating, but the point of it was the process." This deeply perceptive bildungsroman thoughtfully explores several absorbing topics, but first and foremost it is an intimate, exhilarating story of first love. It's billed as a companion novel to Lo's Last Night at the Telegraph Club (rev. 1/21), and readers will be delighted to discover the connection between Aria's and Lily's stories.

(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)