Truthfully, I didn't finish reading this book. I got to about the hook and decided to put it down as soon as I saw where it was going. When (Spoiler) the friend dies, immediately the entire book became obvious. I can't put much of a say on the race issue, as it isn't my place, but the book itself doesn't read well and was painful to get through all the cringing. It might change in the end, and be better, but for now I will say I have no plans of adding it to my collection. Thank you for the opportunity to read it, and I'm sure that others will have differing opinions if they get further through than I did. Unfortunately, it just won't fit in with our collection.

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. This book is about June Hayward/Juniper Song, an aspiring author whose debut novel has recently bombed, and her insanely successful friend, sometimes frenemy, Athena Liu. When Athena dies in a sudden accident, June takes the manuscript Athena has just finished, reworks it, and passes it off as her own. It's a premise that I've seen in other books recently, but in Yellowface there's an added layer exploring race and identity. I find the business of the book industry really fascinating and Yellowface doesn't shy away from criticizing it. I can see this book inspiring a lot of questions like Whose stories deserve to get told? and Who has the right to tell them?

I loved everything about this book. R.F. Kuang has a gift.

I know this book is going to make so many people upset, but I loved every single page of it.

I tore through this book really quickly. I'm a sucker for characters who get what coming to them, and this book was not a disappointment. What I didn't expect was that there was no tidy resolution. June's act of literary appropriation is discovered and interrogated, but the resolution is anything but tidy. I'm being vague to avoid spoilers, but this is a messy book, with messy characters and a messy resolution. So much of the drama unfolds online (which is probably par for the course with authors these days), which one of June's editors lambasts and says that most readers won't care, authors are all too online. I was left with a melancholy feeling at the end, when it was clear that none of the characters were willing to break free of the spiral that their actions brought on.

Yellowface is a deliberately uncomfortable read about appropriation and identity. The central relationship between POV character June and her classmate/friend/idol/rival Athena is the strongest part of the book, lending an undercurrent of racially motivated jealously to the whole narrative. This toxic relationship is utterly fantastic, and I wish there was more.

My biggest issue with the book was the lack of nuance — the extensive sections dedicated to online criticism undermined the novel’s attempts at successful satire. It made for a grippingly cringey read, but sometimes felt too exaggerated for the sake of the narrative. (Not that racism isn’t ridiculous or can’t be blatant and infuriating, just that June sometimes came across as an unbelievable character.) The best parts of her POV were when she tried to convince herself she wasn’t a hateful person, rather than the times she excused her behavior: then her delusion felt more realistic and satirical.

I really enjoyed the way white guilt operates in the novel along with the thinly-veiled criticisms of the publishing industry; the passages about tokenization, especially for authors of color, were compelling and relevant.

Overall, I couldn’t put this book down, but I struggled with some of the execution. When it works, it’s brilliant. When it doesn’t, it’s disappointing. Still, it was creative, frustrating, and intensely personal, as many of Kuang’s work is. Even with its issues, Yellowface is a scathing indictment of white feminism, corporate diversity, and public vs. private identity. I enjoyed this deviation from her previous work, and remain excited to read whatever she puts out next.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.