Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

Omg this review has been a hard one to write. I have been thinking about how to review this book for days and to be truthful I still can’t fully decide so let’s just say it’s between a 3 and 4.

There were moments of this book that I was completely immersed and time seemed to race by, other moments where I was rolling my eyes thinking ‘well that wouldn’t happen’. It felt completely like a book of two halves.
Firstly I must stress that I am probably viewing this book extra critical as I recently read ‘the plot’ by Jean Hanff Korelitz which is similar in a few respects.

The ending for me just felt a tad too predictable and I didn’t warm to our leading lady as much as I hoped. It felt as though the more I got to know her the more she ‘left a bad taste in my mouth’. I know that sounds weird but it’s the best way I can put it.

It’s fast paced, easy to read and does make you look at the publishing and social media worlds in a different light. It raises so many thought provoking questions that this would be the ideal book club read.

I think this book is really going to divide opinion and be a love it or loathe it book for many.

The authors writing style feels very different and unique and I’m very intrigued to start babel soon !

A thrilling whirlwind of scathing controversy not too dissimilar from real life publishing, Yellowface was a gripping read that had me screaming at almost every page. A bit of a lackluster ending but admittedly that's on me being a lil' bloodthirsty and wanting June to get her comeuppance but sadly, the actual ending reflects reality - how grim.

The central premise of Yellowface is so off the chart good it hurts. It was infuriating being inside Juniper's head as she embarks on her racist plagiarism journey but also so compelling I couldn't look away, which gives you a good idea of just how good a writer Kuang is. I was sceptical of the switch from SFF to litfic/thriller but I felt in safe hands and Kuang's characteristic building of tension shone through from the get go. Sometimes, I found the cycle of events Juniper experiences nauseatingly repetitive, and at about the 40% mark I did feel as if the story could be propelled forward with a little more haste than was present, but overall it was gripping, darkly humorous, and jaw-droppingly shocking in all the right ways. A large part of my enjoyment certainly came from the fact this wild story was all unravelling in "my" world, and I wonder how someone who isn't so involved in the publishing industry would view it, but, unlike other books I've read recently set in the industry, I didn't feel like the *only* thing keeping me reading was the small nuggets of recognition and insider knowledge.

I enjoyed this book and it kept my interest throughout although when I looked occasionally to see what percentage of the book I had read, I was surprised sometimes that I did not seem to be getting through it very quickly. I was never bored by it though.

There are quite a few issues raised in the book which I found thought provoking but as a middle aged, straight, white Scottish woman, i do not feel qualified to comment on. Also, assuming it is all accurate, the book is very informative about the world of publishing where it seems that talent and the ability to tell a decent story is no longer sufficient.

At first I was dismayed by Junie's mean spiritedness and jealousy but I suppose she grew on me because I did start to feel sympathy for her. I felt she was well drawn and her anxieties were realistically described even if I did not entirely relate to them., By and large this is a solid book, an easy read with a good storyline which keeps you interested all the way through.

I did have two tiny quibbles with the story - i) why did Junie not just say that she wrote the book in collaboration with Athena? and ii) why did she not just switch off from the social media which was causing her so much pain? I realise though that point ii) seems impossible to people who have never known the time before the internet.

I have to say that I was a bit disappointed with the end of the book with the Candice stuff which I thought was melodramatic and not in keeping with the rest of the book., i would have preferred an ending where Junie wrote her partly truth partly fiction version of events., which would, of course have been the very book we are reading. Also, i expected more from Mrs Liu and the notebooks because this seemed to hint at mysteries and secrets but that come to nothing.

Good read though, Junie stays with you and, just as if she was real, you find yourself wondering how she is getting on!.

Well she’s done it again. Another fantastic read from RF Kuang. I feel so lucky to have managed to get an early proof of the book. An exciting and well thought out storyline with a unique twist of events. Kuang manages to captivate her audience through her unique writing style and sustain pace throughout. I couldn’t put it down and read it in one sitting! That’s how I know I’ve enjoyed a book. It had me hooked from start to finish. I was a little sceptical because it is so different to her usual style of book but I was pleasantly surprised and will definitely be reading more from Kuang in this style in the future.Thanks for the early proof.

Yellowface is a well-crafted, eye-opening dark satire exploring racism within the publishing industry, without shying away from a single horrible aspect. The book manages to make you squirm, whilst also being laugh-out-loud funny and nail-bitingly frightening in certain parts. It’s incredibly gory whilst remaining nonviolent. I can’t wait to see the conversations this novel will spark.

Something RFK does really well in this book is she puts effort into fleshing June out, giving thought and nuance to her toxic headspace and motivations. There is at least one instance in the book where I found myself feeling sympathetic towards June, and then you’d turn the page and be reminded of what a nasty and prejudiced individual she is. By doing this, and not just making her an over-the-top caricature of This Is The Villain, it makes June’s microaggressions, racist inner-commentary and delusions that much more impactfull because she mirrors the real people in society who truly think like her.

In terms of the writing and themes explored, the book would’ve been a 5 star read for me. However, I’m marking it down to a 4.25 simply because I did not gel with the meta elements. Whilst the insights to the publishing industry was fascinating, the entire middle section of the novel focuses on online reader spaces, with BookTube, BookTwt, BookTok all being name-dropped, and Goodreads itself being a major plot point. There were a lot of worthy conversations brought up here - about cancel culture and call out threads, about negative reviews and review bombing - and I personally feel it became a bit heavy-handed, with reasonable critiques receiving laughter and scorn. It could be argued that this negativity is from June’s perspective and not RFK’s, but it all just felt a little iffy to me, to the point where writing this review for Goodreads is making me feel a little bizarre.

Thank you to HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction and NetGalley for providing me with an e-arc. All opinions are my own.

3.5 stars

Thank you Netgalley and HarperCollins for giving me this advance-reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

As a fan of Kuang’s The Poppy War, Yellowface was one of my most anticipated releases of 2023, especially when I heard that Kuang was shifting into a new genre and tackling the ins and outs of the publishing industry in the form of a satire.

Kuang, throughout this novel, not only highlights the difficulties of breaking into the world of publishing but how, more times than not, authors are chosen for their image rather than just talent – especially in the case of marginalised writers. She outlines how intentional publishers can be about being viewed as “inclusive” or “woke”, tokenizing authors of colour, despite the fact that the publishing world is an inherently elitist society – it is an elusive club that only a certain few are allowed to be a part of. I also really appreciated her discussion on the place and power of social media in these situations. Kuang focuses on perhaps the most toxic of them all, Twitter, and shows just how much it can dictate and shape a narrative, whether that is for the best or for the worst.

I also felt that Juniper, our narrator, was an interesting vessel to carry this sentiment through. She was incredibly unlikable and for most of the book, I found myself outraged by her and how she and those around her could justify her plagiarism and absorption of POC stories. This outrage was fuelled by Juniper’s voice and how she would constantly victimise herself in her tone and expression. I thought that the relationship between Athena and Juniper was fascinating. I really loved how as the reader, we are sympathetic towards Athena and we’re supposed to be. She is the one who is slighted and we want her stories and her legacy to be redeemed and returned to her. However, she wasn’t two-dimensional. Athena wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t a hero. She was multifaceted and also did terrible things in order to advance in the writing world. So their dynamic intrigued me and made me wish that we had gotten an even deeper dive into their relationship because it was so interesting to pick apart their back and forth dynamic.

Despite this, there were aspects of Kuang’s writing I found a little lacking. At times, I found the narrative to be oversaturated with the same phrases and slightly repetitive at different points which stagnated the story. I also found some of the later plot points a little unbelievable and towards the end there was a lot of telling over showing – kind of like a cartoonish villain revealing all their plans – which weakened the ending of the book.

Overall, although I had my issues with it, I really enjoyed my time with this book. I was outraged and disgusted and found myself flying through the pages. I think that it is a very important read which I'm glad exists because it calls out not only the inherent racism and injustice of the publishing industry but dissects on a deeper level themes of originality, ownership, accountability, representation, and storytelling.

I read this alongside Babel, as I thought it would be good idea to compare the two books. Yellowface was absolutely nothing like I had expected. It looks at the publishing world with a brutally honest viewpoint to the extent that you are left wondering how much of this Kuang has experienced personally. It explores the highs and lows of young writers trying to make a name for themselves, handle success, and then the ultimate fall when things take a turn for the worse. None of the characters are likeable, and the environment they find themselves in is hostile from start to finish. It left me with mixed feelings. It takes some skill to write an unlikeable character well, but at times I was frustrated with the obviously bad decisions made by certain characters that kept the story on the right path.

There are times when you read a book and you know within the first 5 pages that it will be a 5 star. This was the book. I am not someone who reads the genre this book is marketed as but I can absolutely attest that no matter what RF Kaung writes at this point I am going to eat it up. I felt on edge in a good way throughout this book, and I didn’t know where this book was going, I enjoyed the ride as I felt the tension building and I felt like it could be real but I know that was the point. I feel this book is a great example to how story telling should be and it held me from the first page to the last- although the ending I turned expecting to be more and was like oh I hadn’t realised it was ending. I guess I was just that engrossed in the book and I had not been paying attention to how close I was to the end. This was the most enthralling read I have gotten my hands on and I found myself swept up to it all and feeling that I need to know so much more about everything.

Thank you to netgalley for the e-arc of this I am grateful for the ride and have my jaw dropped and I am still questioning everything of what I just read and this is what I feel I will be measuring up to every book I read of this sort. R.F Kaung in my eyes you can write anything and I will love it.

Absolutely deranged, but in the best possible way.

Author June Hayward has been living in the shadow of her friend Athena Liu, whose writing career has been vastly more successful than her own. When Athena dies in a freak accident, June takes her dead friend's manuscript about Chinese workers in World War I and finishes it, publishing it under her new racially ambiguous pen-name Juniper Song. But how long can she keep up the facade?

I said in my review of Babel that I was fascinated by how it was in conversation with Kuang's Poppy War trilogy, and Yellowface is another voice in the same conversation, about what it's like to achieve phenomenal success as a young writer, especially as an Asian-American writer drawing on Asian history. What I mean is, it's fascinating to me that R. F. Kuang has written this book. Kuang could basically be Athena Liu, and it's clearly a deeply personal book. If I could sum up this book in three words, it would be "bitch you thought".

This is, indeed, a book deeply engaged with online book drama. If Babel was a violent takedown of the dark academia genre/aesthetic, Yellowface is a takedown of the book world, ‘diversity’, #ownvoices, etc. It’s amusing to me that this was written before Babel even came out, as it seems to anticipate some of the worst criticisms of that book. Basically, this book isn’t seeking to change the minds of TikTok reviewers who call Kuang racist against white people. Quite the opposite, in fact. This is not a subtle book; Kuang barely even tries to fictionalise certain specific publishing scandals.

I might ordinarily be cautious about awarding five stars to a book about, essentially, online drama. It will definitely not be for everyone, on that basis. As for me, well, I’m too involved in the online book world to pretend otherwise. But aside from all that, this was tremendous fun to read: I could barely put it down, caught up entirely in June’s story, equally dreading and wholeheartedly cheering her downfall.

I’m intrigued by whatever Kuang does next.

Thanks to Netgalley, who provided a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to the publisher for an arc of this book!

This book was everything I was and was not expecting, in a good way!

I loved this book so much. I couldn’t put it down or stop talking about the genius writing style and sarcasm it is used in this book.

It was so interesting to see what it means to be a best selling author for one of the big publishing houses that we all know.
And especially what the author does/ sacrifices to get there.

We all just see the outside of “that success” so it was super interesting and captivating to understand what goes behind the scene, including the pressure that social media now put on the authors shoulders.

This book was brilliantly written, the story was totally interesting and it’s something I was not expecting Kuang to write tbh.

After this book I’m pretty sure what no matter what this woman writes will be a masterpiece.

I remember applying and receiving this book as an arc last October and that was before I read Babel so I had no idea how good of an author Rf Kuang really was. All I knew was that people were excited for it and it was written by a big author so as a smaller account I really wasn’t expecting to receive it but I am so happy I did get this book.

I think what made me like this book most is that I hated the main character, June. Like they were an absolutely horrible human being throughout the book and I have to give credit where credit is due because it takes true skill as an author to be so consistent in what you want your main character to be and in this case the main character is simply the worst. You will see what I mean when you read it

There is a clear message in the book surrounding the toxicity of the book industry. I could definitely imagine the entirety of this plot happening in real life which whilst that is sad clearly shows how strong of a depiction of the industry Kuang has written.

I also believe that the three dimensionality of the themes in this book is what really makes it stand out. An easy way out as an author would have been to paint June as the bad guy and end it there but instead all the characters in the book are not perfect by any means and it just shows that these characters are humans.

This is one I really enjoyed and may have to end up buying a physical copy of. The hype is definitely worth it and I can’t wait for everyone to have the opportunity to read it so I can talk spoilers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins for giving me the opportunity to read this book

When literary darling Athena Liu dies, struggling author Juniper Hayward steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own under the ambiguous name June Song. But as evidence threatens Junioer’s stolen success, she will discover how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves. What happens next is entirely everyone else’s fault.

What a read! I read this book in one sitting. I think I would describe this is a literary horror. It was hard to look as the story unfolds but harder to take my eyes off the book. I really was reading it through my fingers over my eyes!

Athena’s novel was set during WWI and depicted the struggles of Chinese labourers. We see a manipulation of the text to suit a white middle class American perspective. Juniper defends her changes as not racist but a ‘softening up’. She laments ‘cartoonish’ depictions and believes she makes the work more nuanced.

It’s a cautionary tale about the what we value in society. It’s done very effectively and with very little subtlety.

From the opening it is clear that the protagonist is unsavoury but as the novel progresses she descends into paranoia and stews in her own narcissism. It’s a fascinating character study.

This would be a brilliant book club book. It definitely made me stop and think about capitalism, the book industry and of course racism in all its guises.

Highly recommended! Thank you to Harper Collins for the advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. 4.5/5

Yellowface is a thriller full of irony and cynicism about the publishing and, overall, the literary world. The fact that we follow June as our main character, with her condescension, her racism and her (white) gaze through a success that doesn't belong to her makes everything more deep and more nuanced about the critics that are being made against literary agencies, publishing house and systemic racism...

Though maybe the Twitter discourse part was a bit too long and too dramatic, I was not once bored, just waiting to know how all of this will unfold, how everyting will explose, and I was not disappointed. Tension is everywhere, well dosed and well written.

ARC received in exchange for an honest review.
I have to say, I enjoyed this far more than Babel. Possibly because I had expectations of the latter - which were quite cruelly dashed. Yellowface, on the other hand, was meant as a satire, an exploration of racism, cultural appropriation, plagiarism and the politics of the book publishing world. Now, as with her other books, Kuang is again hopelessly lacking in depth or subtlety, but because of the subject matter, readers can fill in the blanks for themselves; the most amusing part is wondering which bits are drawn from the author's own experiences and how much of her is Athena Liu.
Kuang is undoubtedly intelligent, and an extremely hard worker, and obviously under huge pressure to keep producing the money-makers for her publishers, but the time may have come for her to either grow up and add a bit of depth to her work, or else go back to producing mediocre YA fantasy. Nevertheless, an entertaining, quick read.

It feels strange and somewhat meta to be writing a review for this ARC when the book revolves in part around the world of publishing, the impact of each individual reader’s review (good or bad) upon an author’s wellbeing, be it on a blog, a youtube video, Goodreads or amazon.

I first heard about Yellowface at an in-person author event with R.F. Kuang - I was hooked by her description of the plot, but honestly at this point I think I will read anything Kuang produces. I love unreliable narrators, stories in which you must distance yourself from the character and not allow yourself to sympathise with them - Yellowface has carried out this narrating style outstandingly well, its narrating voice ‘June’, a white author who steals a manuscript from her dead frenemy (an incredibly successful asian-american author, ‘Athena’)- a manuscript revolving specifically around a cultural history that June has no part in.

There are many points where the reader must stop and reevaluate their stance on the story and its narrator, such as after June has thought or spoken a micro-aggression embedded within the text, which become much more obviously vicious and less ‘micro’ as the novel goes on. The smaller swings within the text create stirs of stomach-sinking hate between June and the community which she feigns to support, and they are just as impactful alongside more obvious examples of hate and injustice. It is a dread-filled glimpse into the mind of a deeply flawed woman who claims she is not racist (she voted for Biden, guys! come on!), echoing many sentiments of inaction, indifference and blatant ignorance of issues that we are all too familiar with seeing in glorified public figures today.

I spent the whole novel feeling practically unwell with the constant premonition of June’s downfall - a strange position to be in considering her downfall is a good thing when regarding what she has done in order to even have somewhere to fall from.

This was another captivating page turner from the clearly proven and established masterful pen of Kuang, and I eagerly anticipate her next work.

This is a well-written, intriguing and easy read. The plot is cleverly constructed, fast-paced and very entertaining even though the novel covers complex issues such as racism, diversity and cultural appropriation.

We follow the story through the eyes of a white aspring author who steals her dead Chinese friend's manuscript and edits and submits it as her own work. The novel provides an eye opening window and witty satire of the publishing industry and the importance of social media for self promotion and success.

The unreliable narrator's voice is captivating. She is self-absorbed and totally frustrating as she tries to justify the awful decisions she makes. Overall this story covers up-to-date controversies which are packaged into a twisty, gripping, thought provoking read.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley UK for the ARC.

This was quite a difficult book to review. Things I liked: the story flowed quickly, and it was an interesting exploration of diversity and racism in the publishing industry. I think my favourite part of the book was the relationship between Athena and June, and to be honest, I wish this had been explored in a little more depth. Additionally, some elements of the plot were a little repetitive (especially the middle section when June is getting cancelled on Twitter).

Overall though, I did enjoy this book as it was a lot of fun watching Juniper's downward spiral, but I wish some of the other characters and relationships had been developed a bit more (especially because most of the characters didn't really feel like real people, but more like a stand-in for a theme/symbol/message).

Wow where do I start?

This premise is genius. It’s a fabulous way to explore microaggressions and racism from a relatively comfortable position of privilege, within the POV of the MC who tries to pass off as Chinese, and has to face the consequences of her actions.

The social commentary, especially with regard to publishing and its treatment of junior poc staff, is on point. The racism is insidious, normalised by the MC and her publishers. This book was hard to put down, the train wreck of an MC compelling to watch, with all her familiar wrong footed microaggressions and privileged delusions.

Brilliant story and oh so satisfying.

Hooked almost from the first page, I've not read Babel but I will be now. A story following a woman who stole her deceased friends manuscript then has it published as her own work, a fast paced (on point) read about the publishing world and the slow unravelling of the fraud. Humorous at times and often gripping, I thoroughly enjoyed it.