3.5 stars

A Scatter of Light follows Aria Tang-West, who after her nude photos get leaked at school she gets sent away to spend the summer with her grandmother. Whilst there she learns many life lessons and things about herself, including befriending a local lesbian friendship group and having her first taste of love and desire.

I didn't enjoy this one as much as much as last night at the telegraph club, partly because Lily was such an endearing main character and Aria is kind of bland in comparison and partly because I cannot stand cheating storylines.

Malinda Lo's writing is so gorgeous. It is very descriptive but in a simplistic way that makes you really able to visualise and imagine you are there with the characters experiencing what they are experiencing. It is very compelling to keep reading and is subtly emotionally wrenching - in a way that it sneaks up on you with how much it is making you feel and all of a sudden you are having a breakdown T_T

Once again Malinda Lo manages to capture queer culture in a specific time frame in such a caring and empathetic way. In this book as well she explores more working class queer/lesbian culture which I thought added a lot of depth and interesting themes to the book.

My main gripe with this book was the fact the main relationship was essentially an affair and while I think queer relationships should be allowed to be just as messy as straight relationships I will always hate any sort of cheating storyline (no matter what gender combo it's just not my preference to read about). Some people might really enjoy this kind of drama and angst but for me it just frustrates me because it is a form of miscommunication and I always hate that. I don't think the author was intending to portray a healthy relationship so this isn't a criticism of the book, just a personal preference. I think however this book is an excellent portrayal of that messy first love/sexual awakening/queer awakening experience and how you can't always control who you desire.

I also loved the more modern feminist themes in this book, including how women are often slut shamed for things that are not their fault and forced to bear the consequences for men's actions. Having said I didn't like the main romantic relationship the highlight of this book for me was the friendships Aria had, both with her old friends (I thought this was an excellent portrayal of teenage girl friendships and how they can get messy but ultimately have a huge undercurrent of love) and the new ones she makes in California. I also loved the relationship Aria had with her Grandmother, Joan, who is a famous photographer and helps Aria discover her artistic side. I also thought the portrayal of memory and legacy through Joan's character was beautiful and extremely touching.

In conclusion this is an extremely well written book with a touching coming of age story, however I was slightly let down by the main character and the main relationship. I would still recommend it, especially if you were a fan of last night at the telegraph club as we do get a little glimpse and Lily and Kath's lives during the years gone by :')

A Scatter of Light is a really beautiful story of self-discovery, grief, and first love.

I really enjoyed the overall plot and characters, all of the side characters are strong and every character felt raw and real. I didn't like the cheating side of things, I struggled to invest myself in Aria and Steph's relationship because of it and that definitely affected the emotional impact as certain events happen.

I enjoyed the slower pace and the atmosphere of the book, Malinda Lo did an amazing job of creating that relaxed summery feel while also dealing with some pretty heavy topics. I wasn't expecting the grief plot line so I would definitely check trigger warnings if this is something that might bother you, there's a lot of it even though it's written very well.

I haven't read Last Night at the Telegraph Club but I enjoyed A Scatter of Light anyway, this can easily be read as a standalone but it has made me want to read Telegraph Club too.

This is a quiet and beautiful book, a slow burn story that captures the moments of life that define us. After an incident at school, Aria goes to spend the summer with her grandmother Joan, an artist whose late husband was an astronomer. Aria finds herself drawn to Joan’s gardener, Steph, and begins of summer of queer self discovery.

This book so perfectly captures how it feels to discover your queerness, that slow, pleasurable and sometimes frightening realization. Malinda Lo charts with astounding accuracy all the tiny, intimate details of having your first same-sex crush, making all those small moments seem powerful and universe-shifting.

The motifs of art and astronomy intertwine to create this thread of endless beauty that serves to capture the ephemeral nature of time, with Aria’s youthful, burgeoning romance with Steph contrasts against her aging grandmother’s memory of marital love. The explanations of astronomy are beautiful and perfectly timed to highlight poignant understandings about life, time, and our space in the universe. Aria’s grandmother Joan is a wonderful character, and I love the moments when she talks in depth about her art - what it means and the journey it has taken her on throughout life.

A Scatter of Light has some lovely moments of discussion on gender and sexuality, all of which feel so natural and genuine within the story. There’s also a really cute link to Last Night at the Telegraph Club, which was so sweet to read. This book is emotional because it feels so real - life isn’t perfect, things don’t always work out the way we want them to, and wonderful, lovely things don’t last forever. But maybe things are beautiful because they are transient, because we cannot have them together, and maybe life is understanding that permeance is an illusion and all the beauty is in the motion of the universe.

First, I would like to thank Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for an e-arc of this title.

I would like to preface that Last Night At The Telegraph club was my top pick for 2021. So I went in expecting my heart to shatter and it did.

I can't put my finger on exactly what makes Malinda Lo's work so touching. It could be that I don't read enough coming-of-age stories so when I do they obvious hit a lot harder.

But it would also be the beautifully crafted three-dimensional characters. It's as if I have never felt so connected to a character, never read a character that felt so stripped down and raw. Everything that they felt, so did I.

While both Malinda Lo's books feature women in STEM, this one also delved into the creative side with artists and musicians and photographers. It showed how a person can be artistic and expressive while also interested in astronomy and how the world works.

While I don't think you need to read Last Night At The Telegraph Club before reading this, I think it gives some amazing context to the story. The protagonists in the two books are distantly related and the main character from Last Night does feature briefly in this. Their story felt almost concluded in this book bringing their characters' story into a full circle.

I would recommend reading both books as a pair but also to prepare to be shattered by the events of the story that will leave you in tears but also hopeful for the future.

thank you to netgalley and hodder & stoughton for my arc of a scatter of light

this is perhaps one of the most beautiful book’s ive ever read, in the sense that i have never read or immersed myself with something that describes exactly what i have been through before. that first person that makes you start questioning everything about your sexuality, that. is what malinda lo has depicted so cleverly.
this was equally such a messy book, purposefully, but its done to explore our main character, aria’s, own messiness. its quietly beautiful, especially for anyone who will resonate with a queer discovery..
i would say its important to note that this is not a romance book, its far from it, yes it entails around love but if your reading it for romance, its not going to hit.
i read a scatter of light in two sittings, although i found it fairly easy to read there were moments when i slowed down and allowed the plot, characters and literature to sink in.
bonus points for getting closure on lily and kath’s story!!
the complexity of family was presented really well i thought, there was love there the whole time, but also anger and a lack of generational understanding, and as a young adult myself i can see the faults of aria’s parents more, through what i perceive society as like now.
this is a special book. it won’t be for everyone but many people will pick this up and feel seen, and that’s something that is honestly sp valuable.
the characters were delivered excellently with believable reactions, personalities and characteristics.
a scatter of light is an emotive, powerful and incredible book that i would gladly recommend to anyone and i heavily enjoyed reading it.

General thoughts- Another hit from Malinda Lo, this is such a gentle coming of age story following our main character Aria as she explores her sexuality and learns new things about herself in a summer that wasn’t quite what she had planned. I loved this one too, it’s not quite at the heights of LNATTC, but it’s up there.

Plot- It’s a very simple plot, Aria goes to stay with her grandmother, meets her gardener, and gets involved in a new group of friends that’s entirely unlike her school friends. There’s a really great dynamic between her and her grandmother, and you also get a good sense as to her relationship with both of her parents, and how that’s affected her up until now, I did really like the sub-theme of family and familial relationships in this book. There are a lot of small plot points and themes in this book that all kind of weave together to form this lovely coming of age story for Aria. There’s the finding new friends, finding new love, re-establishing a relationship with a grandparent, coming to terms with the relationship she has with her mother and her attitude towards her parents divorce, and a nice little backdrop of science and art playing a part in her life. I did love that idea of the two opposites finding balance, it did almost feel like a metaphor for Aria’s bisexuality and how she comes to terms with that. I’ve already used the word gentle to describe this book, but it’s definitely a great word to express the general feeling of this story, in the same way that Telegraph Club moved along at a slow pace but not too overwhelming, it’s perfectly balanced and isn’t boring in the slightest. Scatter is a character driven story, and I think that it just moves along at such a relaxing pace, despite the tensions later in the book. It’s a great summery feeling.
Aria is a great main character, you’re given a really good insight into what’s been going on at school, what’s been going on with her family, so you understand the frame of mind she’s in and how she’s got to where she is. She’s sweet, good fun, and has a really fun relationship with her grandmother. I love the opening chapter explaining what she thought of her grandmother when she was younger, and why she uses her first name, it gives a really good idea into how she is around her grandma, and what Joan actually thinks of her. Aria’s also incredibly flawed, and we all know we love to see that in a character, how she approaches things with Steph and how it all plays out is incredibly messy and almost selfish on Aria’s part, but you kind of understand why she does what she does, it’s a difficult situation where she has to choose whether to listen to her heart or her head, and with all the context behind that you do kind of understand why she makes the decisions she does, despite knowing the consequences.

Steph- Great love interest, shes fun and outgoing, has a great personality, and is a good match for Aria. Despite the fact that she’s in a relationship, you see the connection that she and Aria have together very quickly, and you can see the struggle she has with wanting to stay with her current partner, but also what Aria offers her, and you watch them move forward into the mess they both create, but you kind of understand how they got there. It’s incredibly well written their relationship.
I think one of the things this book is maybe missing is just that little more discussion into the whole art aspect of the story. Since her grandmother is an artist, this has a huge impact on Aria as a child, and whilst she moves on to being very science minded- and I love how the science stuff helps her form a connection with her dead grandfather, I like how it kept him in the narrative- she kind of goes back to being interested in art over the summer, since she’s surrounded by her grandmothers work and has some really interesting conversations about abrstract work with her. I feel like this isn’t quite as important to the narrative as the conclusion would make you think, and I feel like there’s just something missing that would help tie it into everything a little better. Like I said earlier, it could be a good metaphor or parallel to her discovering of her bisexuality, so I feel like there was jut a lil something missing there. But overall, just a really great read, again demonstrating that great feeling of finding community in queer spaces, and how safe she feels to discuss her evolving thoughts and things shes discovering about herself. It’s a bittersweet story too, with both Aria and Steph making harmful decisions, leaving their relationship on a bitter note towards the end that makes a lot of sense for what the story is trying to tell about these characters.

Another banger from Malinda Lo, and some fun tie ins to LNATTC, so if you’re a fan of that, I’d definitely pick this one up. It’s a fantastic contemporary romance and coming of age story.

Malinda Lo's "A Scatter of Light" is a totally different novel from "Last Night at The Telegraph Club", despite living in the same universe and in the same family even. This is a quiet sort of book focusing on one's personal journey through sexuality and through self realisation. Aria, our main character, is not just discovering her sexuality throughout a summer, she is also connecting with her family's history, coming to terms with the fleetingness of life and the uncertainty of future.
It is brilliantly written, straddling the line between art and science, between the feelings one feels in the moment and the future we ourselves to build, no matter the hardships of the presence.

I absolutely adored LAST NIGHT AT THE TELEGRAPH CLUB that I just /had/ to read this one. And the fact that it’s linked to that book made it so much more exciting!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book - like I’m struggling to put into words how much I loved it. I wanted to take my time with it so that it wouldn’t be over too soon but also speed through it to find out what happens.

Now, tell me why I got so invested in the characters that I actually started welling up at /that/ moment. I felt like I was going through all the emotions that Aria was going through!

I just loved the Lily and Kath mention!! I was waiting for them to crop up!

I highly recommend this book, and LAST NIGHT AT THE TELEGRAPH CLUB if you’ve not read that one either!

Although I did enjoy this book, I don't think it was executed as well as he first. I went into this thinking it was going to also be set in the past and wasn't until they mention the use of mobile phones that I realised my mistake. This is clearly meant for a slightly older audience than Last Nigh at The Telegraph Club due to the nature of some of the storylines. The relationships between the characters were awkward at times, which can sometimes happen with YA/teenage stories but not something that ruins the story for me. The ending however was totally disappointing. If this is the first story by Malinda Lo that you read then it's probably fine but since im comparing it to her previous one that I loved so much, i just thought it could have been a lot better. I would definatley still recommend this one, just maybe towards teens rather than the high end of the YA age bracket.

This was an emotive contemporary (well, 2013, but I refuse to refer to it as historical 🙃) YA which explores a wide array of topics including sexuality, relationships, family and grief through a snapshot (the summer before she goes to college) of its MC's life.

Malinda Lo has a talent for dropping you immediately into the life and world of her characters. I got a good sense of who Aria is early on and I found myself really invested in her and her life and her family.

However, this perhaps worked against the book at times, as Aria makes a series of choices that gave me 2nd-hand anxiety, as they're obviously not going to end well, and as a reader I could see the car crash coming, even though I understand why she makes the choices she does. (Some of which definitely boils down to teenagers make poor life choices sometimes).

However, the ending still made me smile. Like bad choices or not, I was still invested in Aria and rooting for her and the ending felt fitting.

I would also say, for anyone like me who loved Last Night at the Telegraph Club and was excited to read this because of that, the link is fairly tentative. Aria is a distant cousin of Lily's and whilst she gets a couple of mentions and there is a brief section where a newspaper extract shows what Lily and Kath are doing in 2013 (which I did love tbf), I would recommend viewing this as an entirely separate book. (And it does definitely hold up as its own book!)

Overall though, an enjoyable YA with a realistic MC who I immediately felt invested in.

I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A Scatter of Light by Malinda Lo.

Thank you Netgallery and Hodder & Stoughton for an ARC for an unbiased review.

This book is touted as YA, but do not be deceived. This is a book that can be read by almost any age upwards from that as there are things that I can look back on and known they touch similar aspects of my life or those around me. I'd also advice you to have tissues at the ready, because I cried more than once.

The premise of the book is coming of age, and self discovery. Particularly in regards sexuality, and all the messy things that dredges up. If asked to sum the book up in one word, I instantly would say:- Bittersweet.

The prose throughout this was wonderful. Part of a line is for me, a prime example of what the story is as a whole '... is about how Adrienne Rich's relationship with another woman is a lot of work. You have to choose to be in the relationship, because the rest of the world doesn't make it easy.'

There is grief, longing, love. It is complex, yet brought in a way that carves a clear line of sight to it all.

The environment that Aria found herself in around Steph, Lisa and Mel was one that is certainly grounded in a lot of reality especially around the time it was set. How casual racism was intermixed with acceptance, and cultural spaces that celebrated the diversity were beginning to really openly find a place.

This book can easily be read as a stand alone, rather than a companion piece to the Telegraph Club. In fact, I'd advise a reader to go into it as a separate piece if work to get the best from it.

I consider this a 5/5 stars 🌟

I loved this just as much as Lo’s previous novel and this novel’s companion. It took me a few chapters to fully become immersed in the story however I quickly fell in love with the characters and all their mess and emotions. I loved to see how the ‘companion’ part of this companion novel would unfold as it felt so removed from Telegraph Club at the beginning, but that just made the discovery all the more fun. There are so few coming of age novels centered on young queer women—and even less featuring Asian American main characters—and I hope the success of Lo’s books inspires more stories like it. This is a novel I wish I had when I was a teenager and I’m so happy it exists.

Loved, loved, loved this book, a delightful story of 18 year old Aria Tang West, who is sent in disgrace to stay with her grandmother close to San Francisco, instead of to the Hamptons with her school friends. Of course this is by far the best thing ever for her and for us. I loved her grandmother, a lovely wise woman, who was still an artist and creating, even as she mourned the death of her husband. Aria then finds herself hanging out with a group of lesbians and.... no spoilers here. There was a lovely sense of community in this book, and how Aria finds her place within her own family and within the new queer family. She makes mistakes as an 18 year old would and there is some worrying passivity but there is also determination. All the characters are well rounded even the brief glimpses we get of Aria's mother. Wonderful story.

With thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

Another beautiful book from Malinda Lo! Being a big fan of Last Night at The Telegraph Club, I wasn't sure how this would hold up next to that, but it's such a gorgeous read! The book follows Aria and her summer spent with her grandmother over her friends. It's a book that delves into personal self-discovery, not only of the romantic kind, but it's about finding yourself and your place in this world. There's a super sweet kind of cameo tie in to Last Night at The Telegraph Club which I loved too! Lo has such a gentle, beautiful writing style that definitely carries over into this book too! Thanks so much for the opportunity to read! Will definitely be buying to read again once released! :)

Thank you to Netgalley and Coronet for a copy of this book for review.

This is companion novel to Lo's historical romance, Last Night at the Telegraph Club, but they're still completely stand-alones.

It's 2013 and Aria Tang West was looking forward to spending one last summer at Martha's Vineyard with her friends before going off to university. However after comprising photos of her end up online, she's uninvited. Instead she has to spend the summer with her grandmother, Joan West in California. Joan's house is full of reminders of Aria's beloved Grandfather who died 5 years ago.

She unexpectedly finds herself drawn to her grandmother's gardener, Steph. Steph however isn't available as she has a girlfriend, Lisa.

This coming of age book tackles a lot issues such as cyber bullying, slut shaming, grief, sexuality and self discovery but it feels organic, never forced. This book is at the older end of YA.


An overall enjoyable read but I felt some of the plots weren't well developed or wrapped up.

I thoroughly enjoyed this messy and somewhat chaotic dive into a coming of age tale of Aria. Lots of raw emotions and feelings about several things all at once (very true to real life). I liked how mistakes were allowed to be made and consequences were given as a result and not just conveniently swept under the rug in the name of plot.
Aria definitely grew as a person with her friends from school and those she met while living with Joan.
I think Joan was one of my favourite characters too, she was sweet and wise but didn't just hand out answers to life. The descriptions of her paintings were beautiful too.

ARC from NetGalley.

A lovely companion price to last night at the telegraph club, a wonderful story about finding yourself when your whole world seems to fall in. I loved the story of Aria and hope to read more!

4.5

Such a beautiful depiction of self discovery at that pivotal moment of finishing high school, just before you go on to the rest of your life. The pacing was slow but it worked so well for this story; it matched the atmosphere of this one last long summer. It's told from the perspective of Chinese-American Aria as she looks back at the summer she was 18, when she stayed with her grandmother in California. At her grandmother's house, she meets Steph.

It's a companion to Malinda Lo's Last Night at the Telegraph Club, and while there is a connection, this book is very different in tone and plot, but still has that tender, gentle feeling that I got with Last Night at the Telegraph Club (and there is a glimpse into what happened to Lily and Kath, which I loved to see of course, but did feel sliiiightly shoehorned in, but was still relevant to the story, if that makes any sense??).

A heavy theme of this novel is grief, as Aria can feel her grandfather everywhere in her grandmother's house, and she really connects to him through their shared love of astronomy, and it really made me very emotional as it brought up a lot of memories of my own granddad. There's also another shock of grief later in the novel, affecting Aria in the midst of the story, which also showed how well the author writes heavy emotions and completely immerses you in what she wants you to feel. And those emotions pop up in the romance side of the book, in the turmoil of first love, of falling in love with someone you shouldn't, of falling in love with someone you never expected to... if you cry easily at books, I'd have some tissues ready if I were you!

Set in 2013, the story follows Aria who is forced to stay with her grandmother for the summer after a graduation party goes wrong.

Initially I wasn’t sure if I was going to like Aria & now I’ve finished I’m still not sure. She is a very complex character & the situations she finds herself in are uncomfortably relatable at times, I see a lot of myself at 18 in her as I’m sure a lot of others will.

This a beautifully written story of teenage angst, the road to understanding yourself & who you want to be, navigating the world around you when you don’t even know yourself & how relationships can impact your journey. It is the poignant, messy coming of age book that I wish I had had 10-15 years ago.

Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton & Netgalley for the opportunity to review this ARC.

Firstly, this cover is absolutely stunning. It's just so breathtaking, as is the title. The story is written in Lo's usual immersive style and hooked me in from the beginning. I have a soft spot in my heart for Malinda Lo's stories as her book Ash was the first queer novel I ever came across so I'm always excited when a new one comes out. That being said, I didn't like this one as much as I did other recent books of hers such as Last Night At the Telegraph Club which is sort of a sister novel to this one (in that it exists in the same world and the protagonists are vaguely related) but it was still a very good read.

This is very much a story about uncertainty and self-discovery. Aria- the main character is 18 and on the brink of going to university when an incident happens and she's shipped off to spend the summer with her grandmother. During the course of this summer, she undergoes a lot of changes in her perspective and how she sees herself and the world. She doesn't always make the most empathetic or understandable choices but she is very relatable.

There is a great cast of characters in this and it's excellently written. I really enjoyed this one.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this in exchange for an honest review.