Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
Genre : Thriller, Mystery
Publisher : William Morrow
Athena Liu is a literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody.
White lies
When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own under the ambiguous name Juniper Song.
Dark humour
But as evidence threatens June’s stolen success, she will discover exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
Deadly consequences…
What happens next is entirely everyone else’s fault.
With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as the terrifying alienation of social media. R.F. Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.
I saw this one all over booksta and I gave into the hype and read it
😂 It was a great read and worth the hype, but there were a few
things that kept me from completely loving this one.
Yellowface follows June Hayward, an author who hasn't been as
successful as her other(actually only) author friend Athena Liu, who
keeps getting all the things that June can only dream about. So, one
night when they're celebrating Athena's latest Netflix deal and she
chokes to death right in front of June - everything changes. June
steals her latest manuscript and passes it off as her own. And she
ends up getting all the success and attention that she's been
craving. But, nothing can be kept hidden forever and when things
come to light, June will have to decide how far she's willing to go
to hold on to everything.
This was kinda like watching a trainwreck - you know how bad it's
gonna get but you just can't look away. Kuang's writing is amazing,
and how June seemed so sane in an insane way was brilliant. She
couldn't bear to hear criticism of her work but when passing off
something that's not hers she's ready to make all the changes. She's
racist and blatantly hypocritical but doesn't see herself that way.
And the commentary on the publishing world was so real. But it made
me also randomly remember the book-world drama with that author who
faked her death😶
But, the thing is none of the characters are likable - and it's done
on purpose. Everyone is flawed including the late Athena, and
personally I like unlikable characters only when they have a
character development arc - which isn't the point here and that made
me feel exhausted. So I think it was a me thing that kept me from
fully enjoying this one because if you've had the misfortune of
meeting people like June irl like I do then you can understand why I
wasn't loving it completely 😂 The ending was a bit anticlimactic
but makes sense as this is what happens in the real world too.
Overall this was a great read that I couldn't bring myself to put
down and I think many others would love it too!
You can also find my review on my bookstagram here
Rebecca F. Kuang is the award-winning, #1 New York Times and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Poppy War trilogy, Babel: An Arcane History, Yellowface, and Katabasis (forthcoming). She has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford; she is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale.
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