Review: Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

White lies. Dark humor. Deadly consequences… Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn’t write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American—in this chilling and hilariously cutting novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author R. F. Kuang.

Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.

So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.

So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.

But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

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 compelling. ~ Goodreads 

Source: e-book via Libby

The Bookpusher: Jen Ryland Reviews

Review: What a trip Yellowface was! It was a biting satire of the publishing industry, cultural appropriation and cancel culture, a thrilling mystery, a fascinating look at the writing process/publishing, and, at times, a self-indulgent, self-defense of authors (& possibly of the real life author R.F. Kuang).

For those who don't know, R.F. Kuang is the author of the extremely popular The Poppy War trilogy - a dark fantasy about war and politics in mid-20th-century China & the critically acclaimed Babel, a speculative fiction set in an alternate-reality 1830s England, as well as other books. Since I'm not a big fantasy reader, I have not read any of her previous works but gave this one a try since it's firmly set in the present - not to mention how incredibly topical it is. 

Writers, June Hayward and Athena Liu have been friends since college - coming up in the publishing world a the same time. Both are published, but June's experience is quite different to Athena's. Athena becomes an instant sensation, while June's book and profile languish. Despite the strain, they always meet up for drinks or dinner when in the same town and call each other about any new publishing news. June, who is white, usually interprets any of Athena's news as bragging and generally feels that she's only successful due to her being Chinese-American and "the diversity trend". Although she grudgingly agrees that Athena is talented. 

One fateful night they go out but head back to Athena's home after, have a few drinks and genuinely have a good time in a way that June hasn't felt with her since college. Athena shows June her latest first draft and, then shortly after, dies in a freak accident right in front of a panicking June.  

On her way out of Athena's apartment, June grabs her draft, an experimental novel about the Chinese Labour Corps of WWI. The days pass - and as the friend who was with Athena when she died - her social media profile sees an uptick. The follows and likes and sympathy increase. Liking the attention, she starts combing over the draft, tweaking and editing until she has a fully polished manuscript to present to her agent. 

Now, is this stealing? June reasons that no, she's helping Athena get her final magnum opus published. However, the more she thinks about it, it needed a lot of work, and June's "improvements" made it what it is now. And, really, how much of Athena is still in the work at this point? So she passes it off as her own, while saying that her friendship with Athena helped inspire it. 

Things start to go off the rails. June refuses a sensitivity reader after one of the Chinese-American employees at the publishing house notices several issues. In the editing process, June cut several of the scenes centering the horrors of the laborers and instead focused on the British soldiers, white savior narrative to, as she would say, keep it from being a downer and appeal to a wider audience.

Feeling a little nervous about a white author publishing a book about Chinese history, the publisher gives June the new pen name of Juniper Song. Close enough to her name - her middle name is Song - but also ethnically ambiguous enough to ward off questions. 

While the book is a huge hit, it goes about as well as you are expecting. The blowback on social media is swift. Despite her success, accusations of cultural appropriation and even plagiarism come at June in waves. She becomes more and more obsessed with Goodreads, Twitter and Instagram and who is doing this to me???

It turns out that someone, apprently, close to Athena, might actually have the dirt on June and bring her whole world tumbling down. 

Yellowface is a tough book to pin down. June is a horrible person. She feels slighted by everyone and everything and has a huge chip on her shoulder. True to real life - when she's called out in Goodreads reviews or Twitter - she makes the usual, cringe worthy apologies, doubles down with 0 sense of irony that she did steal the draft and she did cut out the cultural references/didn't do the research lol.

Athena doesn't come off much better. She didn't mentor younger Chinese- American writers, in fear that they would outshine her, she mined and profited from peoples' painful stories and was kind of a shitty friend. She gets canceled posthumously. 

The story does get a little too meta and self-indulgent at times. Kuang has faced many of these accusations herself, and clearly *gets* the book-ish ecosystem. It feels like she hits every single argument ever argued and because it's always from June's (unreliable) perspective there isn't a whole lot of nuance. Just - people are mean, why me? But honestly, I've seen everything she wrote about in this book at one time or another. 

Having said that, I kind of think that was the intention. Sure, you can enjoy the inside dirt, the satire and takedowns if you are in the know, but this is also just a frothy, fun read - no lesson required. June isn't likable or redeemable (in my eyes) and maybe that is the judgement. It doesn't need to be spelled out.

This would be an AMAZING book club read. I can imagine bookish people (especially bloggers) would have a lot to say and have strong thoughts. Outsiders might not truly get (or care) about all the insider dirt but there's enough about friendships and the (lackluster) thriller aspect. 

One more random thing of note - this book was published in May 2023 and already felt dated, thanks to the rapidly changing media landscape. So much of this book is about Twitter, and while the drama stays the same, in my head, I couldn't help thinking it's the other thing now lol And references to a movie deal with prestigious HBO are already outdated. It was just a little odd since the book just came out, yet it's already changed.  

Well, thanks for reading that long ass review lol (all 10 of you 😃) The audio, narrated by Helen Laser was excellent. She had just the right amount of earnestness mixed with self delusion to pull off a messy character like June.