This was a wild ride of a book. You find yourself not wanting June to get caught, but also wanting her to get caught. I would start finding myself falling for June's justifications, but then you remember that she saw her "friend" die and stole her work. And every time she gets caught out there is another justification, well Athena stole her story, so isn't this fair?

I’ve given myself a couple days to fully digest 𝗬𝗘𝗟𝗟𝗢𝗪𝗙𝗔𝗖𝗘 by R.F. Kuang, but I’m still having trouble putting my thoughts into words. Let’s start with the fact that I really liked it and quite literally had a difficult time putting it down. The book centers on June Hayward, a struggling writer who steals the newly finished manuscript of her sometimes friend, Athena Liu, just after Athena dies at June’s feet. Now June has no guilt in Athena’s death, but her glee in making Athena’s manuscript her own leads to nothing but angst and rightfully so.⁣
⁣
This is a book that has a lot to say about a lot of things. There’s a huge focus on the publishing industry and the ways it pushes authors, plus many the limits it places on authors of color. It touches on who can write what and how much background does one need to write a story outside of their own. Themes around racism, both overt and disguised, run throughout. Obviously, plagiarism and theft of intellectual property play a big role and it all comes together through June, her guilt, and her constant stream of excuses. ⁣
⁣
While I truly enjoyed 𝘠𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦, there were times when I grew weary of June and her constant whining. Like in 𝘉𝘢𝘣𝘦𝘭, at times I felt Kuang was just a bit long winded and a bit repetitive. Otherwise, I thought it was a fun way to stir the pot on some important topics the publishing world continues to grapple with. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⁣
⁣
Thanks to @williammorrowbooks for an electronic copy of #Yellowface.

Yellowface is a book unlike any other I've read before. This book deals with racism, cultural appropriation, the publishing industry, and the fetishization of Asian women.
Athena Liu is Aidan, beautiful, and successful. June Hayward has yet to really have success as a writer. She thinks about Athena a lot. It borders on the obsessive. One day, June witnesses Athena die and she steals her manuscript and published it herself. But, the manuscript deals with Chinese labor workers. So, she makes her photo more "ethnically ambiguous" and uses the name Juniper
Song.
She plays in the fact that she never outright says she Asian just leads people to think that she is. Through this we see the ramifications of what it really means when someone's culture is stolen.
This book was thrilling, suspenseful, hilarious, and utterly brilliant. The way R.F. Kuang deals with these topics and makes them come alive and pushes you to think. She really shows through the story and actions and words of these characters the messed things in publishing and in the debate of cultural appropriation. The writing is so clever, and so witty. I was gripped the entire time. I also felt really seen. The way Asian women are talked about, fetishized, made to be others is really shown. At my university I experienced a lot of racism and it was from places that you wouldn't expect.
This is an easy 5 star book. It's booth eye opening for a lot of people, plus is so freaking entertaining with so many twists you won't want to put it down. You'll also want to immediately binge all of her books!

Thank you to William Morrow Books for this advanced copy

Wow, what a story. This satirical piece of contemporary lit fic was genius. But it's also like a trainwreck - so painful to read but you can't look away. Is fantastically cringe a descriptor? Because this book was so cringey but in the best sardonically bitter way.

Author R.F. Kuang does a masterful job of creating this incredibly relevant and incredibly now narrative about an author who steals an unfinished book from her dead best friend. The kicker? Juniper Song is white, and purposefully makes herself appear racially ambiguous so she can pass her Asian friend's book off as her own.

Juniper herself is a character you love to hate- she always has a good justification for what she has done and constantly frames herself as the victim. There are so many tongue-in-cheek references to whiteness in the publishing industry - I appreciated the jabs at things such as celebrity book clubs and book boxes and the book buying industry.

This book is incredibly bingeable and well written book will MAKE YOU THINK. An especially relevant read for AAPI Heritage Month. Thank you Netgalley and William Morrow for an advanced ecopy in exchange for my honest review. I give this one a 4..5 stars rated down to a 4.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Hooooo boy was this book a trip. There will definitely be some people out there who will not be fans of the ending, but I loved it, because it was just so true to the character (can’t say more than that because spoilers, obviously, but… you’ll see.)

It would be so easy to hate the main character, June, and, don’t get me wrong, she is a terrible person, but Kuang writes her in such a way that she’s still compelling and I still want to follow her process… mainly to see if she ever learns and owns up to what she’s done.

The writer friend June steals from, Athena, while initially portrayed as some literary goddess, you soon see had her own flaws (flaws which do not, of course, excuse what June does).

I really wish I had the words to write a review that would do this book justice, but in lieu of those, let me just say, you should read this book. Especially if you’ve lived Kuang’s previous works. Or maybe if you eagerly followed the unfolding American Dirt discourse and want to peek behind the curtains of the publishing industry and a fictionalized version of what that might have looked like from the inside. Or if you just really like reading stories about misguided, terrible people behaving badly.

This was a fantastic read! Kuang really let her feelings out about the publishing industry in a way that was hard to read but captivating at the same time. You finish the book with so many thoughts and feelings about it all. I hope that this is widely read and appreciated.

4.5 stars
"I'm a Serious Young Author. I'm a Literary Star."
Thank you to Harper Collins Canada and Netgalley for my eARC of Yellowface for review!
Meet author Juniper Song, aka June Hayward. She wrote the bestselling Chinese WWI historical fiction sensation, The Last Front. Or did the recently-deceased Athena Liu?
It's the first-person narrative from June/Juniper that I found fascinating - she's not generally likeable, but she is infinitely interesting.
Yellowface delves into issues of race and cultural appropriation, friendship vs rivalry, the representation of marginalized voices.
What does an author have the right to write? And what happens when the winds of online discourse shift against a literary darling?
Is June a "plagiarizing, racist thief"?
We as readers are given a look into not only the writing process, but the publishing world.
Author R.F. Kuang has absolutely nailed this smart and quirky new release - absolutely recommended!
Released on May 16.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I think Kuang did a really smart move with the unreliable POV style throughout the book. The narrator normalizes her behavior, and her terrible actions seem more morally gray to the reader because of her justifications, making the reader question themselves multiple times. I also like how the author tackles the idea of diversity in publishing. However, there were multiple times throughout the book where I thought the book could have ended, but it just kept going. It just felt like it dragged a bit, and Kuang just kept adding more and more. Other than that, I enjoyed the story. I liked the audio book a lot as well. The narrator was great.

Dudes, give into the hype surrounding this book, because it’s every bit as good as everyone says it is. This book is the literary equivalent of these addictive little frozen chai milk tea-flavored mochi bites they sell at Trader Joes. I just can’t help but keep putting those morsels into my mouth, and I just couldn’t help but devour this book page by compelling page.

Oh, how I love to loathe a book’s protagonist. What’s more is I love how much I hated just about everyone in this book. They were all awful, save Mrs. Liu. She’s an angel. But otherwise? Each and every other character in this book is either so inconsequential I could dismiss or forget them as easily as June (our protagonist) does or I could just outright think each and every one of them was an absolutely awful person in their own way. And, to my amusement and for the shade of it all, I adored each and every one of them for being the horrible human beings they were.

Because that’s who they are. Human beings. And that’s part of what I took away from this book. We’re all human beings living in the shades of grey, and between cultural diaspora, socioeconomic strata, generational trauma, and social media none of us know how to be genuine anymore or know how to handle people who actually are genuine. There’s a general distrust between each and every one of us here in America, because America runs on individualism and that need to be the one wearing the crown, and white people largely and genuinely don’t know what to make of other cultures where collectivism, trust, and generosity make the world go ‘round. We white people want that feeling for ourselves (I know I do), but most of us aren’t willing to give up our individuality, prestige, and money for such a life. And that’s sad.

The first act of this book upset me greatly, to the point where I was growling and shaking my Kindle because I was so mad. Please don’t mistake this for criticism of the book, because it’s not. This section of the book should make you upset. It should make you mad because you’re reading the process of taking one author’s hard work and stripping away her unique voice only to supplement it with another’s. You see large sections of important historical events get cut from the book for the sake of not triggering readers. Terrified young women become softer. June and her editors essentially vivisect the original author’s manuscript until it becomes a neutered version of the original, all set for proper public consumption. Now it’s not a tour de force piece of historical literary military fiction–it’s just a solid historical military fiction novel. It’s a ghost of the novel it could’ve been. That’s a travesty in and of itself. The fact that June, the original author’s white friend, rebrands herself in order to sell this novel and keeps using absurdly twisted logic to justify her actions is almost an even larger travesty.

This book has so many terrific points to make: About how there’s a difference culturally in how stories are passed down from the old to the young. About how some white people think all Asian people look alike and their names sound alike but never think about how white people all look a lot alike. About how social media is poisonous to everyone, but especially creative souls. About cancel culture, how easy it is to be canceled for something that happened years and years ago and how you can never recover once that happens but how men still always bounce back quicker from scandals than any woman does. How fast the news cycle runs and the pressure to publish or perish doesn’t stay in academia but extends into the publishing industry as well, and how important it is for authors to be firm and specific when it comes to negotiations with film studios over film rights.

You make your own hell. You make your own prison. June did both of these things the moment she decided to take her dead friend’s manuscript and make it hers. It hems her in by shame, greed, anxiety, and fear. She sees no way out and she definitely doesn’t know if she wants out. The only way she’s going away is if she’s forced. There’s that Protestant Work Ethic wrapped in vice.

I don’t think I need to tell you to pick this up. It should be a foregone conclusion. It’s sharp, biting, shady, witty, and will make you angry three ways to Sunday. It’s worth every minute you spend on it. You won’t be able to put it down.

I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: 5 Star Read/AAPI Fiction/Literary Fiction/OwnVoices/Satire

YELLOWFACE by R. F. Kuang is a new novel about a young white writer, June Hayward, who usurps a draft novel named The Last Front from a suddenly deceased friend, Athena Liu. June edits the novel and publishes it, using Juniper Song (her middle name) as a nom de plume. Eventually, Twitter and social media explode with charges of plagiarism and June struggles to deal with the consequences. She is an amazing "spin doctor" and creatively shifts the story around repeatedly, believing "The truth is fluid. There is always another way to spin the story, another wrench to throw in the narrative." However, June is not a likeable character and it was very difficult to feel sympathy for her. Kuang's writing, though, is excellent, particularly as she satirizes the publishing industry, which can feel disturbing. For example, June says, "'Quirky, aloof, and erudite' is Athena’s brand. 'Commercial, compulsively readable, yet still exquisitely literary,' I've decided, will be mine." Or "Author efforts have nothing to do with a book's success. Bestsellers are chosen. Nothing you do matters. You just get to enjoy the perks along the way." YELLOWFACE appears on the LibraryReads list for May 2023 and received starred reviews (which "don't actually mean anything ... but artificial hype is still hype," per June) from Booklist and Publishers Weekly.

I used to wonder how my life might have turned out differently had I been raised in a less STEM-focused family. Perhaps, if my parents had seen writing as an aspiration equal to science, I might have become a journalist or a writer, given my perpetual itch to tell stories.

About five years ago, a friend disabused me of this notion shortly after publishing her first novel to critical acclaim. “Writers are the most miserable people,” she said. She bemoaned the constant comparison game, the prize list drama, the gossipy backstabbing. Anything from not receiving a phenomenal blurb for one’s book to being snubbed at a conference was grounds for war. In a profession whose metrics of success are incredibly subjective, writers easily succumb to insecurity, self-doubt, and jealousy. To be clear, this isn’t an indictment of writers, but of the limited crumbs of capitalist leftovers that they must fight for in an economy that doesn’t place sufficient value on the humanities.

If my friend helped pull the wool off my eyes that night, YELLOWFACE by R.F. Kuang takes it to a whole new level. In this satire, Kuang excoriates the entire publishing industry. Critiques of racial privilege and cultural appropriation predominate, but Kuang also takes on Twitter activists, pressures to stay relevant, and how “winners” are chosen in advance by publishers that pour money and marketing into certain books, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This is a page-turner of a send-up that ultimately left my feeling profoundly sad. Since childhood, authors have been my heroes, and confronting the morass in which they must operate is disheartening – but important.

June Hayward, a struggling author whose debut novel flopped, is trying hard to come up with a novel to make her splash. At the same time, she is seething with jealous over her the success of her friend Athena who is a literary whiz. The two are celebrating Athena’s success when a freak accident in Athena’s apartment leaves her dead. June, now alone in Athena’s apartment, steals her new manuscript about the exploitation of Chinese laborers during World War II. June edits and works on the novel and submits it as her own, publishing it under the name Juniper Song, her full and middle name. Oh we forgot to mention, Juniper is white.

If you like books with unreliable narrators, Yellowface is the book for you. June Hayward is a struggling author, jealous of her "friend", Athena Liu's meteoric success. When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals a manuscript from her desk, thus setting into motion June Hayward's transformation into Juniper Song, and her rise to literary infamy. This is a satire of the publishing industry, book twitter, neoliberalism, and modern society as a whole. When Athena's past sins are revealed, they pale in comparison to everything June has done and justified along the way. The writing in this is fantastic. Even though I never fully sympathized with June, Kuang will make you feel some empathy as June is attacked on social media, until you realize she deserves it. This is a book that feels rooted in this present time, and is all together a compelling read.

Yellowface is a fun departure from Kuang’s previous works, but it remains deeply unapologetic in tone, taking aim this time at racism and whiteness in the publishing industry. I might be in the minority here, but I think Yellowface is my favorite book of hers that I’ve read so far.

I loved the commentary on publishing’s lackluster commitment to diversity, favoring performative check-the-box behavior rather than meaningful action. In fact, Kuang highlights the ways that the industry actually enables people like June. We see her marketing and publicity teams suggest a “rebrand,” conveniently ignoring the fact that her middle name “Song” is more ethnically ambiguous than “Hayward.” Despite accusations of theft, June’s agent and editor continue to work with her because controversy drives book sales!

Yellowface also examines the ethics of writing. Beyond the debate around white people profiting from POC stories, Kuang also questions if folks from the diaspora can write about history and trauma they never personally experienced. and should writers treat their personal lives and those of their friends and family as fodder for book material?

I’m sure some people will think this book is too heavy handed, but June feels like so many people I’ve met in real life: She’s liberal (in name only), feels some remorse for her actions, but is ultimately determined to play the victim. She bemoans how marginalized people are soooo lucky because publishing only wants their stories, how hard work and merit aren’t enough anymore, refusing to acknowledge the fact that those very dynamics are what keeps marginalized groups out.

I couldn’t stop reading this book. This is everything I want in a novel: good writing, morally problematic characters; a skewing of society and books.

🟡The Story: When she was June Hayward, her debut novel flopped and she was floundering trying to come up with a novel to make her splash. At the same time, she is seething with jealous over her the success of her “friend” Athena who is a literary darling. The two are “celebrating” Athena’s success when a freak accident in Athena’s apartment leaves her dead. June’s alone in Athena’s apartment and swipes her new manuscript about the exploitation of Chinese laborers during World War II. June edits and works on the novel and submits it as her own, publishing it under the name Juniper Song, her full and middle name. Oh yea, Juniper’s white.

🟡My Thoughts: Just wow. When I saw it was written by R.F. Kuang, I thought fantasy books, which are not my thing. Nope, she has such a range of writing talent. This book is fast-paced, funny, thought provoking and on-point. It covers social media culture and the toxicity associated with it so very well. This is going to be one of my favorite books of the year. After I read the book, I read the reviews in The New York Times and the Washington Post. I completely disagree with the criticisms therein, but I can understand why this book would irk folks in the publishing industry —- I am just a reader and I loved reading this book.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was my first experience reading a book by R.F. Kuang and let me tell you, the writing was excellent! Engaging, intriguing, with that spark that keeps you hooked in from the first page. I enjoyed the writing a lot, so much that I read Yellowface in one sitting. That’s how good the writing was.

The main character was so mired in her exaggerated sense of self-importance that she’d built this whole reality where she was the victim. I kept reading to see just how far she’d go and how she’d rationalize to herself every awful thing she did. It was like watching a Final Destination movie. You know it’s going to get horrible but you’re hooked and you can’t stop watching, i.e. reading in this case. And that ending? Yet another twist.

I think it took a lot of courage to write and publish this story. Kudos to the author. It’s made me an instant fan and I cannot wait to read R.F. Kuang’s other books.

3 controversial opinions out of 5

"How does someone go from being a real person, someone you actually knew, to a set of marketing and publicity points, consumed and lauded by fans who think they know them, but don't really, but understand this also, and celebrate them regardless?"

Writing a review about a book that talks heavily about book reviews is ultimate metacore. And while RF Kuang's subject matter did resonate with me, I'm not overly satisfied with her delivery. Before I get into the why, here's the who, what, where.

"We owe nothing to the dead."

Juniper Hayward is about to make it big. She just wrote a fantastic historical fiction novel on Chinese laborers in WWI, and it's gonna be the next best thing (unlike her flop of a first release). There's just one small detail: she didn't write it. Oh, and she's white.

After the sudden death of her 'friend' and bestselling author Athena Liu, June discovers an unpublished manuscript... one that she's ready to pass off as her own in order to get the fame and fortune she's always envied Athena for having.

Will she be found out? Will the ghosts of her wrongdoings haunt her forever or will her success wash away her guilty conscience?

"I hadn't realized how much this terrified me: being unknown, being forgotten.
'And then when I die, I won't have left a mark on the world. It'll be like I was never here at all.'"

I think this book tried so hard to social comment that it got lost in the weeds. It forgot about the excitement of storytelling, which RF Kuang ironically highlights the importance of a handful of times. I would definitely not call this a thriller, as some book sites have been categorizing it, although it had the potential to be. In the end it reads more like a collection of ranting opinions, some hilarious, but others overused.

It touches on a rainbow of hot topic issues: own voice writing, plagiarism, cancel culture, self righteousness, the illusion of public personas... And when you attempt to cover them all in under 300 pages, none end up feeling particularly important.

"I've written myself into a corner. The first two-thirds of the book were a breeze to compose, but what do I do with the ending? Where do I leave my protagonist, now that there's [...] no clear resolution?"

I also found that towards the end it was difficult to distinguish between what was fiction and what Kuang may have been actually living while writing this book and using to fill the pages, a blurring of genres that I didn't enjoy.

If you want characters you can anchor yourself to, this may not be the book for you. Even the protagonist feels detached in a he-said-she-said sort of narrative that makes for an impersonal recounting. The book does have some fun insides into the publishing world, if you enjoy that.

Wow. I used meta twice— Ok, now three times— in one review. Time to end this. #writersgonnawrite

Big thanks to Harper Collins Canada for gifting me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

June Hayward and Athena Liu meet as undergraduate students at Yale—both dream of becoming authors one day and even debuting in the same year. But when Athena becomes an up-and-coming literary star, June can't help feeling jealous when her book's sales are underwhelming. After celebrating another win for Athena, June witnesses a tragic accident that kills her frenemy. She seizes the moment and steals Athena's recently completed novel following Chinese laborers during WWI. It's the perfect heist since nobody knew she was working on it.

June furiously edits Athena's manuscript and sends it to her editor, passing off the work as her own. When her publisher rebrands June as Juniper Song, the con is on. June believes anyone can tell any story, and she's got the sales to prove it. But when someone claims her bestselling novel is the work of the late Athena Liu, June goes on high alert to hold on to "her" hard work.

Yellowface had my attention from the beginning. I knew June would be insufferable, but the woman goes far to be the worst type of author. I was equally compelled and horrified to watch June dig herself into deeper and deeper holes. June's insistence that SHE is the best person to write a fiction book about Chinese history is laughable. But that's what casual racism does to people. The book perfectly explores racism, xenophobia, and discrimination in the publishing industry. June is so woefully unaware of her biases that she can't help exacerbating the problem. Instead, she plays the role of a white woman who is somehow always the victim.

This book was meta in the best possible way. I was endlessly entertained as someone who has watched tons of author drama on Twitter. R. F. Kuang is a genius, no question about it.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

R.F. Kuang has done it again, unleashing another absolute banger! This book was so tense and cringey (on purpose) that I found myself pacing and fidgeting with discomfort at the main character's choices. I love a book so visceral I feel the discomfort from the page in my body--that's powerful writing! The form for this book is truly fascinating--it's perhaps the only book I've ever read that really only has one character, with no real relationships to speak of. We get to know almost no one else--an extended metaphor for the protagonist's inability to connect with anyone and her narcissism. And what's most impressive is how Kuang propelled us forward without relying on other characters to serve as foil or push the plot. It was un-put-down-able all by following the main character down her one-way road of increasingly catastrophic choices.

This book is incisive in its commentary on entitlement--on the entitlement this white character feels to success, to being able to tell any story regardless of her proximity to it, to other people's stories altogether. It takes a riveting look at identity and at whiteness's resistance to any boundaries.

And while the book is making several macro statements, it's also just extremely compellingly told. Another unmissable Kuang book!

wow! this book knocked my socks off. Satire targeting publishing and racists, cultural appropriation and mean people. I loved it. Could not put it down. Not for everyone but very good.