R.F Kuang never dissapoints. Full review on my instagram. Yellowface is a intelligent and snarky take in modern day publishing. In Portugal, it is way more discriminatory than in the US.

Thank you William Morrow for providing me an ARC in exchange for a review.

June and Anthea, who met in college, both share a passion for writing and publishing. Anthea has enjoyed a successful career as an author, while June has struggled, leading to some feelings of jealousy. Anthea, having published several books and built an illustrious career, is currently working on a new project. In a dramatic turn of events, Anthea invites June over for a drink and tragically chokes and dies in front of her. Before leaving, June impulsively takes Anthea’s latest manuscript, reading and editing it, and ultimately takes it with her.

I was completely engrossed in this book and devoured it within a few days. The story fascinated me on several levels. It offered an interesting insight into the publishing industry and June's journey moving forward. This was unlike anything I've read before.

Absolutely unhinged and enthralling read that I could not put down. The first person narrative of the deeply unlikeable protagonist made me want to pull my hair out because she is exactly the kind of white, privileged woman that we've all met before. Juniper makes awful decisions and subsequently victimizes herself after trying to pass off an Asian author's work as her own. Reading from her perspective gives you a front seat to her disturbed and twisted reasoning, such that you will start to see how good white tears can be at convincing you otherwise.
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang is a masterful commentary on race and on the authority and ownership of diaspora stories, and includes interesting insight into social media's influence on the publishing world. As an Asian reader curious about the inner drama of publishing, I enjoyed it thoroughly and would highly recommend it!

I waited too long to read this. This was a captivating, original, intriguing story that felt REAL. Who is the villain? Do I side with the villain or the MC? This is my first book by RF Kuang and I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish. The first person narration fully immersed me inside the thoughts of the MC and it was perfection.

Oh wow this book is such an amazing satirical look at the publishing industry. It is brimming at the seams with unlikeable characters and if it had been a movie I’d have been watching from behind a cushion as I was cringing so bad at Juniper’s behaviour at multiple points. Fascinating and horrifying in equal measure, this would make a fantastic bookclub choice as there is so much to discuss!

Overall an entertaining read!
Loved the antagonist POV and I was enthralled until the halfway mark but it started to become a bit too fanatical for my tastes. Overall still a great read and I know this is technically satire but I find it hilarious that this was actually published despite it’s damning content.

The book is a reflection of what is happening in publishing and what I have seen on social media - so it was a little predictable for me. The book, however, is thought provoking.

A meta novel with insights into race and society. R.F. Kuang is such a talent and brings her skills to literary fiction in this novel about writers.

I absolutely loved this book and found R.F Kuang's satirical look at the publishing industry, and the world in general, as sharp, smart, biting, and brutally truthful. I love that the author did not shy away from making the book's protagonist a totally unreliable, unlikeable narrator, one that the reader can't put down! Well done. This surprised me and made me think. Highly recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy of Yellowface by R. F. Kuang.

The Most Anticipated Mystery and Thriller Books of 2023

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

It’s been incredible watching R.F. Kuang effortlessly genre-hop over the last few years. SFF readers know her from the epic fantasy trilogy The Poppy War, but then she dazzled with last year’s Babel, an alternate-history fantasy that takes down British colonialism by way of magic-infused silver bars activated by the power of translation. While Yellowface is her first book more rooted in realism, it’s clearly a tonal successor to Babel, as a satirical literary thriller skewering the publishing industry’s deep-rooted diversity problems.

Rising author June Hayward watches fellow Yale grad Athena Liu outshine her in their debut year, but when Athena dies in a freak accident, leaving behind a brilliant unpublished manuscript, June leaps at the chance to rebrand herself as ambiguously ethnic Juniper Song. Because what’s most important is telling this woman of color’s story, even if a white woman has stolen it… right?

Wow! Yellowface was an absolute wild ride. I loved this book and R.F. Kuang's writing really made me think. While it was a departure from her other books, it showed the breadth of her skill as a writer. I particularly loved how Kuang brought us into the mind of June. She inhabited this character well in her writing.

I loved this book. The unlikeable characters and ultimate conclusion. This reminded me a lot of Disorientation.

I realized by a third of the way into the book that the title, Yellowface, refers to the old practice of using ethnic white actors to portray East Asian characters in film and on stage.

The title was fitting for this novel, I thought, as the main character and book narrator, June Hayward, not only stole the unpublished manuscript of her Yale college friend - acclaimed Chinese American author, Athena Liu - but also tried to claim to be Chinese by changing her name from June Hayward to Juniper Song. Her book photograph also made her seem to be Asian.

Athena's book detailed the World War I Chinese Corps of workers who went to Europe to help the Allies by doing the drudge work of war. June had to justify knowledge of that subject matter and appear to be an expert also on the Chinese and Chinese history.

This was a complex novel as it was told from only June's point of view. I didn't know whether to hate or to pity her for her devious strategies to gain fame and fortune from the stolen manuscript and to maintain her false identity as a Chinese writer.

I saw the book had two purposes, however, to show the history of Yellowfacing and racism, and also to reveal the pitfalls of the publishing industry for writers. June felt the publishing world's need for diversity, which led them to focus on promoting promising authors like Athena Liu, giving extra publicity and help to get a book on its way.

I thought this novel was a brilliant addition to literary fiction and Asian American literature.

The hype surrounding Yellowface is REAL, my friends. Or it was for me, at least.

This book is wild. An absolute train wreck that you can’t help but devour. So cringy in its believability. Juniper Song is the quintessential privileged white woman and this book so clearly demonstrates racism in publishing that it is jarring at times. It is exceptionally written (I love that it was told in first person narrative) and I will definitely be buying a physical trophy for my shelf!

Amazing novel. Poignant and entertaining but also very interesting. I couldn’t wait to read this and once I started, I couldn’t stop. Trailblazer author with wit and determination for storytelling .

This is my first R.F. Kuang book and I could NOT put it down from the moment I started it. The main character is just this despicable person who honestly, isn't that different from a lot of white people you know. Her microaggressions and casual racism are so woven into her defense of stealing this book that she almost sounds reasonable. It's crazy. I absolutely loved this title and I can't wait to see more of Kuang's work.

I give this book four stars because, one, it’s highly entertaining. For maybe the first fifty pages or so the writing felt a bit dry, though when the plot picks up, I found myself so curious to know: will this white woman who stole an Asian American woman’s work get caught?? Will she confront her own insecurities that led to this? Is Athena actually dead?? R.F. Kuang creates a selfish, self-absorbed main character in June Hayward, with a consistent voice that kept me engaged in Yellowface’s story.

I also think this book does open up important conversations. Yes, at times it makes its point bluntly/crudely and in an obvious way, though through this satire Kuang raises deeper questions too, such as whether anyone can remain truly ethical or generous in a brutally capitalist publishing industry. I liked how Kuang didn’t make Athena a perfect character because by doing so, she highlights how people of color can engage in problematic and oppressive practices too.

So even though I didn’t agree with all of Kuang’s satirical commentary in Yellowface (e.g., I think Asian Americans should be asked hard, critical questions about glorifying whiteness both in dating partners and in other areas of life), I respect that she seized a popular topic in the publishing industry and made a novel out of it. The exaggerated nature of satire doesn’t always lend itself to a deeper emotional connection with the characters or the story, though I don’t think a deep emotional connection is necessarily the point of this novel. Overall, while I don’t see this novel breaking into my top ten list at the end of this year, I found it an interesting read and one that may be fun to discuss.

*also, just to add, this type of thing is still happening all the time, including in other industries. Recently I saw a white woman publish a research paper on Black and Latinx mothers and when I emailed her and asked about her research practices with these communities, she literally just ignored me. And, as I've written about in at least one other review, one time I gently called in a white woman for doing her dissertation on Asian American women (with no Asian American women as coauthors) and she called me aggressive and "untrusting." sigh!

QUICK TAKE: I liked the overall story, didn't love the narrative device (felt like a big 300-page exposition dump). Definitely biting satire that takes down the publishing industry that I thought was clever and really well-done.

I don't want to comment much to not spoil anything but god...the main character really made me lose my mind at the end 🤡 delulu till the last moments girl get help