Explicit sexual content involving minors and profanity and substance abuse

Wow can Malinda Lo write. The way she puts together a scene is incredible and if I wasn't already in love with California, I would be after this book. Reading it through her words is a magical experience. I actually really appreciated that she incorporated art and painting in this book because I feel like she's able to use words to paint a picture of a place in my head.

This has some similar themes as Last Night at the Telegraph Club, but I did like this book just a tiny bit more because it felt a bit deeper and more fleshed out. I think the historical fiction aspect of the last book took up so much space that she wasn't able to develop some things as much whereas with less context to give, she's really able to delve into themes of family, obligation, and finding yourself. The pacing was just right to keep things interesting and I really liked the main character and her grandma, Joan.

I was able to get both the ebook and audiobook from the library for this and switched between them depending on what I needed to do for the day. If you have a choice between print or audio, I would suggest going with the print. While the narration is good, I thought the narrator gave some characters attitude that I did not at all pick up on in the book, so it changed the vibe for me and was a little jarring. I preferred my reading of it, but if you, like me, really only have time to get a book read while doing chores, then the audio is just fine. ( )

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)

-Kirkus Review

The book A Scatter of Light written by Malinda Lo was a very wonderfully written novel and a great read. My reasons for choosing to read A Scatter of Light are I love the theme of the novel and Malinda Lo is one of my favorite authors so when I saw this book it was an automatic read for me. I rated A Scatter of Light a four out of five stars because the book was great from the start to the end of it. It's a coming of age story about discovering bisexuality. It takes place during the first major decision dealing with legalizing same sex marriage by the Supreme Court. During the story Aria Tang West is sent to her Grandmother's after a party gone wrong. She goes there exspecting not to have fun until she meets her Grandmother's gardener. Her Grandmother's gardener changes the outcome of her summer for the better. I hope others enjoy this great read too. ( )

A Scatter of Light follows Aria West, a teenage girl who has just graduated from high school and who has been sent to stay with her grandmother for the summer after a humiliating incident involving nude pictures going viral. She is not happy about this change of summer plans, as she had hoped to spend the summer on Martha's Vinyard with her two best friends.
Then she meets Steph, her grandmother's gardener, and Steph's friends, and discovers a part of herself that she had not known existed. Set during the summer that gay marriage was legalized in California, A Scatter of Light is a queer coming-of-age story with well-developed characters, difficult emotions and complex relationships. Themes explored are those of art, identity, sexuality, memory, grief and the passage of time. I loved the relationship between Aria and her artist grandmother Joan, who finds herself always making art about time.
A Scatter of Light is quiet, bittersweet, devastating and beautifully written. What makes it even more powerful is that it is from the Aria's perspective ten years in the future. Although described as a companion novel to Last Night at the Telegraph Club, these books can be read as standalones. However, reading both allows one to see the evolution of LBGTQ+ rights between the 1950s and 2013 from the perspectives of members of the same family, and to feel the passage of time even more profoundly. ( )