Who could resist this “eye-catching” cover? Rebecca Kuang is a new author to me and when I saw the cover and read the blurb, I knew I had to read her new novel. Yellowface is a term used to describe someone putting on make up to impersonate an East Asian person and is regarded as highly offensive. And in many ways this is a novel about the moral argument of taking on identities. ⁣
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June Hayward is a struggling author in DC who steals a draft of an unpublished novel from her successful author friend Athena Liu. June has just witnessed Athena choke to death and in the minutes waiting for the ambulance to arrive, makes the decision to steal the papers. June, who has renamed herself Juniper Song, becomes an instant success with the novel appearing on bestseller lists. ⁣
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The novel, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘵 𝘓𝘪𝘯𝘦, is based on the true story of the Chinese Labour Corps, 140,000 workers who were deployed by the British in World War 1 as manual labourers to free up front line troops. They were mistreated, underpaid and many never returned home. Shortly after the books publication, allegations start to appear on Twitter about the moral ambiguity of a white author writing about a lived Chinese experience as well as questions about June’s bona fides. ⁣
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𝘠𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦 explores themes of plagiarism, cultural appropriation and the extents we go to for success. It’s a perfect book for readers and indeed reviewers with great insights into the world of publishing, cancel culture, Goodreads reviews and Twitter trolling. I really enjoyed this caper watching June mislaying her moral compass time and time again. I flew through this one which was a welcome relief after some heavier books of late. ⁣
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The book is due out in May 2023.

Kuang is the Queen of literature at the minute!! She’s just smashing it out of the park with everything she writes. I would be interested to know if she herself has dealt with these issues or if it’s just a bystander watching and taking notes. This is a humorous but serious take and one which brought out all sorts of emotions throughout

OMG. R. F. Kuang can do no wrong. This book had spooky elements, but was also funny.

It touches on some very important themes racism, cancel culture, reverse racism, grief, sexism, mental health, and toxicity in the publishing industry.

Some of it, I wonder, if Kuang actually dealt with herself. Or had to watch others around her face.

Check trigger warnings. I didn’t, and was met with a little surprise. But for me it wasn’t bad enough for me to want to put the book down, rather it made me want to read more.

This is going to be one of the most talked about books of 2023!

Thank you NetGalley and Borough Press for a digital copy of this book!

June, a floundering novelist, is intensely jealous of Athena, her incredibly successful writer frenemy. When Athena dies, June takes her chance (and Athena's manuscript) to reach for fame.

The novel moves throughout June editing and publishing Athena's manuscript and the fame she finds afterwards. It moves through the publishing and writing world: live readings, online reviews, audience reactions on Twitter and TikTok, and rubbing shoulders with other high-flying authors.

R. F. Kuang has a knack for writing evil (see The Poppy War) and capturing the reality that no matter how bad their actions are, no one thinks of themselves as evil. June is a master study in cognitive dissonance, in doing wrong but finding a way to justify your actions. A character like June could easily be either irritating or so unlikable that it's hard to read, but Kuang writes such a compelling character. It's an excellent study in white savour syndrome, in cultural appropriation and every person who thinks of themselves as "not racists BUT".

As a writer I really enjoyed the look at the book world - and I think it's one that people who love bookish online spheres will find recognisable. I felt this novel held back a little from descending into full weirdness - which I, personally, would have loved, but I realise that's not for everyone.

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Collins for the eARC!

Feels weird to be reviewing a book which is about reviews. I'll start off by saying that I've never been a part of the facet of book Twitter that this is exploring, and so I'm unaware of any real-life parallels that could be made between the plot of this book and Rebecca F. Kuang's own career. Considering how personal it felt at times - and how much of a deviance it is from her usual genre - I wouldn't be surprised if she was drawing on own experience here

This is extraordinarily easy to read - I devoured it in one sitting and I'm now committed to reading Kuang's other work (which I haven't had the pleasure of until now). It has a compellingly self-centred main character whose voice feels very familiar in terms of real-life entitled authors and it triggers the morbid curiosity you get from reading a long callout thread on a public figure. The abundance of already-out-of-date pop-culture references will be problematic in the future (and the amount of unexplored Harry Potter mentions - considering the book's subject - made me a bit uncomfortable) but I feel like they make sense with the characters' ages at the time of reading.

My main issue comes with the melodramatic and supervillain-esque climax, which is completely at odds with the rest of the book. It's self-aware of that which just baffled me further because I couldn't think of what purpose it could be serving - it must be an intentional decision but it's one I struggle to understand. That with he fact that, while addictively written, it soured in my mouth after finishing it when I realised how much of the book is just descriptions of online beef. It makes me wonder how much of the same experience I could get just by scrolling Twitter (I do not want to do that).

The dysfunctional friendship/rivalry between the main character and Athena is definitely one of the strongest parts - I much preferred when the book was focusing on them and the dynamics within the publishing industry than the parts about Juniper's social media timeline, and the soft horror elements by the end were very neat and genuinely creeped me out at times.

I'm struggling to rate this but the disappointment at the ending, which was strange and wrapped up far too quickly, dragged this one down for me

I can't think of a recent read that has had my stomach in knots quite like this one. I veered between empathetic and angry, frustrated and understanding. And the tension just built and built. Brilliantly original and thought-provoking.

Firstly, I'd recommend checking trigger warnings before reading this book: rape, death, assault, slurs, online harassment and suicidal thoughts.

"What a tangled web of lies we weave, when we first practice to deceive."

I couldn't help but think of this quote from Shakespeare every time I came back to Kuang's brilliant book.

When writing prodigy Athena suddenly passes away, Juniper gets a golden ticket into elite publishing in the form of a brilliant but secret unpublished manuscript. It's everything she wishes she could have come up with herself. She takes that manuscript and claims it hers. She sells it in a heated auction. And when it's time for promotion, she happily ditches her Western last name for her deceivingly Oriental-sounding middle name. She takes new author photos and picks the one where her skin looks most tanned. She rejects a sensitivity read. And, when ideas run dry, she steals from Athena's notebooks again.

She spins and tangles herself in an intricate web of lies to the point of madness...and her demise.

At the core, this is a story of frenemies. But there is so much more to this book. It's about the publishing industry and its gatekeepers, cultural appropriation, online validation, Twitter discourse, marginalised voices and the exploitation of people's stories.

I loved it.

I would definitely recommend this book to other readers and am very thankful to the publishers and NetGalley for my review copy.

Reading Yellowface was like staring at a burning car and wondering if it’s going to explode. I read the majority of the book in two days.
We follow the main character June, who tries to hide and justify the fact that she’d stolen a novel from a Chinese American writer. June’s also an incredibly unreliable autodiegetic narrator. Especially her framing and reframing of herself, her position and her friendship with Athena leaves us wondering what actually happened and what is actually true.

Yellowface is an examination of how white rooms in publishing are being kept white and how that happens in a constant cycle; even the end marks the beginning of a new cycle in which June could seize social capital. The novel does an amazing job of balancing structural issues and individuals that are a result of these structures. The song Feet Don’t Fail Me Now by Joy Crookes comes to mind. The novel not only examines race but also the role that gender and the public opinion play in publishing. Yellowface also makes a point about the attention economy of the book market, how (especially small/lesser known) authors have to constantly produce new content to stay relevant.
June is constantly afraid of no longer being the literary darling of the publishing world, she’s constantly checking social media to see what people say about her. The novel also goes into the topic of accountability and social activism: topics and issues around diversity and equity are handled very superficially by publishing houses, mostly to look good online, without changing the actual structures that uphold discrimination as the default setting.

This is the first time I’ve read something written by RF Kuang, but I’m vaguely familiar with the elaborate nature and themes of her prior works. Yellowface was not what I expected.

Author June Hayward reinvents herself as Juniper Song after the tragic death of her wildly successful friend, Athena Liu. In the immediate aftermath of bearing witness to this event, June swipes Athena’s almost-finished manuscript and goes on to complete it - becoming a massive star as a result.

This is a really compelling book - a very readable, look at the world of publishing. I absolutely flew through it. However, I found it to be repetitive at points and maybe not quite funny enough to be classed as a satire. I couldn’t help but feel that this book’s only function was for Kuang to air her own grievances with the industry.

As it all begins to unravel around her, I waited and waited for June to go off the rails completely, as was threatened. Her descent into “madness” all felt a bit lukewarm and the ending fell entirely flat for me. She was just a horrible person, there was no major drama. I felt as if the author just wanted it wrapped up as quickly as possible.

I get the sense that Kuang’s strengths don’t lie in this particular genre, but I enjoyed this nonetheless. And the proof cover is very cool.

Yellowface is an absolute romp of a book, designed to annoy everyone who knows anything at all about publishing. It skewers pretty much everyone who has ever had a literary opinion - from Goodreads reviewers, to BookTok to the Twitterati, and pulls absolutely no punches when it comes to the publishing industry, the people who work within it, and the tastemakers who decide which books succeed and which don't. I've already seen a number of reviews from people who absolutely hated it because they saw themselves in it, and chuckled at all of them.

Absolutely everyone in this is absolutely awful, even poor dead Athena whose work June - sorry, Juniper Song - steals and publishes as her own. There's vast amounts of polite and not so polite racism, jealousy, trolling, death threats - you name it, it's in here. And yet, one of the great things about it is that you sense RF Kuang has some sympathy for her truly awful main character, even when she's been found out (because, she inevitably gets found out.) Yes, what she did what wrong, but she didn't do it on her own. She is aided and abetted by a cast of equally awful people, who all want to feather their nests off her book.

A lot of people are going to have a lot of opinions about Yellowface over the next few months. Personally, I loved it. Read it in a day, talk about it in your literary groupchats for weeks.

Another amazing read from R.F. Kuang. Honestly, I think this woman is a genius. This novel was so readable, funny, sharp and wickedly dark. It was so on the nose. I thought it was super entertaining and I gobbled it up in a couple of sittings. This speaks to so so many issues I see come up online amongst the booktube and bookstagram communities - most recently and ironically in response to Kuang’s last novel, Babel. A fantastic read!

R.f. Kuang has done it again. This book was fast paced and kept me on the edge of my seat till the very last page. Every word made me more invested in the story and every new appalling act the main character came up with. Could not put it down and read it in one sitting!

This was my most anticipated read of 2023, and I was beyond excited when I received the arc for Yellowface. Ever since I read Babel last year, RF Kuang has been up there on the list of authors that could sell me her to do list. When I heard her next book was about the audacity of a culture appropriating, intellectual property colonising thief, I knew where I was going to be on May 26 2023 (straya' mate).

So, is Yellowface worth the hype? I think it is, personally. The premise is pretty ambitious, and the route taken in the execution doesn't make it any easier, but I really think Rebecca pulled it off. Using the first person pov voice of the white chick thief in question, it still managed to give voices to a lot of views about the topic at hand: culture appropriation. The ideas explained in this book are a reality that need to be questioned, and I am looking really forward to see how everyone else interprets and embraces the stance that Kuang put forward at the end.

It would be easy to hate the MC in question for their actions, I mean June was DESPICABLE, but Kuang managed to give her enough credibility in June's introspection, actions, motives that even made me root for her a little. It was a mix of wanting June to fail, and not wanting her to get caught. I think part of it is due to the empathy she derived from me, due to her undervalued position in the publishing industry before she made it big with Athena's book (biggest fear but also realistic expectation for all of us struggling writers).

My favourite thing about this book is all the quips and insights into both the writing process, and the publish industry as a whole. I loved, loved, loved how Athena, or June or other authors described how they told their stories, how their process worked, what they did with their prose. The lines were truly beautiful: I have to give birth ~ Athena Liu. That's a joke quote, but the context is actually really great. Read it to find out.

There are so many other quotes I want to share, but I'm restraining myself for sharing. But the prose as usual was Kuang-esque. Immaculate.

I loved the literary references, and usually I don't, but I lived for the pop culture references. This book was a solid 4.5 stars for me, and I loved it enough to still know where I'm going to be when it hits the book shelves. Can't wait to reread it!!

A look into publishing and the things that people can get away with. Never have I ever rooted for the failure of a character and enjoyed reading the whole process.

The story centres on two college friends, both making their way in the world as authors. Athena Liu is successful, June Hayward not so. One evening back at Athena’s apartment tragedy strikes and she loses her life. In the chaos that follows, June grabs Athena’s latest manuscript which she subsequently edits and releases as her own, to critical acclaim.

This book has so many layers. Athena is Asian American, June is white. The novel is a historical fiction based on the treatment of Chinese labourers at the front in WW1. June changes her pen name to Juniper Song, sufficiently open to doubt in terms of her heritage. It tackles so many themes including racism, reverse racism, sexism, mental health, grief, the cancel culture, the power of social media, the toxicity of the publishing industry… It’s a dark satire/contemporary thriller/social commentary and it’s BRILLIANT.

Not going to lie, if R.F. Kuang published her shopping list, I’d probably read it. I devoured this book in a few days. Completely unrecognisable from her Poppy War trilogy yet just as captivating. Her writing is transcending genres and I’m so excited to see what she comes up with next.

This book is an absolutely insane horror novel, that makes incredible commentary on cancel culture, the publishing industry and toxic relationships.
N this book, Juniper, a white woman, after witnessing her “friend”, a bestselling writer, choke to death, takes her friend’s unfinished manuscript, finishes it and publishes it under her own name. I spent the entire duration of this book with my jaw ON THE FLOOR, it was so incredible. I can’t wait to read more of Kuang’s work, and this is a HELL of a book to start with.

Such a unique book, I loved the plot and oh my god the characters were so unforgettable!! I definitely will be recommending it!!

This was my first ever book from R F Kuang. Though she is known for her high fantasy books, I can tell that she excels in any genre. I enjoyed the witty style of the writing here. I will say that the premise is slightly misleading as it gives the impression that story will be about an author who fakes an Asian American identity when this is not the case. I think it would have been interesting if that was done here. Additionally, this read more like literary fiction with some suspenseful elements rather than the full blown thriller that it’s being categorised as. It really only is thriller towards the end. At times, it was really frustrating to read as it felt like one long Twitter discourse.

I feel Kuang's name has been everywhere I looked these last few months, yet somehow, all her books have escaped me.
Going on reviews this might not be the one to start with.
I only discovered this when I finished it.
I enjoyed it it amused me, and I feel it educated me slightly on how publishing possibly works.
The main issue was the main character, who I just didn't dislike enough for her to be of interest... and so I found some parts dull.
Mostly though it was fast paced enough to want yo keep knowing what happened next.
It still left me interested in reading more by this author.

I really really enjoyed this book! Yellowface was sharp, twisted, curious and funny. Keen to read more by Rebecca F Kuang.
4 stars.