Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang

Summary:

This is one hell of a story.

It’s just not hers to tell.

When failed writer June Hayward witnesses her rival Athena Liu die in a freak accident, she sees her opportunity… and takes it.

So what if it means stealing Athena’s final manuscript? So what if it means ‘borrowing’ her identity? And so what if the first lie is only the beginning…

Finally, June has the fame she always deserved. But someone is about to expose her. What happens next is entirely everyone else’s fault.

About the Author:

Rebecca F Kuang (born 1996) is a Chinese born, American novelist. She is a New York Times #1 Bestselling Author. She is currently pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale. Yellowface is her fifth book and was published in 2023.

Rating:

4 stars - ★★★★☆

Review:

I have been really looking forward to reading Yellowface, it seems to be one of those books that everyone has read and I’m behind the times. I picked this up after my husband bought me a Waterstones voucher for Christmas, so thank you for that Shawn!

The concept was really interesting to me. It seemed quite unusual. With the protagonist being a pre-established ‘bad guy’ and the question of stealing another person's work (quite relevant in these days of AI using real art as a reference etc etc). 

I am pleased with my choice and really enjoyed Yellowface. It wasn’t quite what I’d imagined as it was very heavy on the inner workings of the publishing world. Although I found that really interesting because it’s not something I really knew about before. Learning about the process of writing, editing, submitting to a publisher, selling a book, editing again, and the marketing that follows up to and after publication was a fun new thing to learn. There’s a lot more to the process than I ever imagined.

But then intertwined with this, is the very gripping story of June, who has stolen, edited, expanded on, and published her dead rival/friend's work, about an important part of Chinese history. Using a Chinese-sounding version of her name. You know she can’t keep up the charade, and you don’t want her to, but it’s all a question of how the fallout comes about.

This is one of those stories where you’re probably not supposed to have a favourite character because they’re all pretty bad people. The only character that we get a real understanding of is June, because the book is written as a stream of consciousness from her POV. This is particularly interesting because June is quickly established as an unreliable narrator so then you can’t really be sure that any of the other characters are as bad as she makes them out to be. Athena got a lot of stick when in reality she was just trying to find her place as a young Chinese-American writer. I think June made up a lot of stories about Athena to justify stealing her work, or at least twisted things that happened to make it fit her narrative. Going so far as to say that Athena stole stories from her when really Athena was just finding inspiration in the world around her which is what most creatives do. So Athena was probably my favourite character because she worked hard to be successful at such a young age.

Yellowface is set in motion quite quickly with Athena’s death. Although I have to admit, even though the book started by saying that Athena was going to die that night, I was enjoying the story and had almost forgotten when it came around to it. So it quickly grabbed my attention when it happened. I started off feeling sorry for June but she quickly showed that she was a lot more conniving than she thought herself to be.

The parts of the book that have stayed in my mind are Athena’s death and the depictions of what people post on social media when someone is ‘cancelled’. How have death threats become the norm of social media? Every time I read something about social media, it makes me glad that I’ve given it up. 

A part of Yellowface that I maybe didn’t understand or would have liked Kuang to have expanded on, was the legal implications of stealing a dead person’s work. So there were consequences in the court of public opinion, on social media and in the publishing world. This is what June was really scared of. But what about real legal implications? Could she have been sued? Would she get a fine? A prison sentence (probably not)? But I don’t know. For me, it was maybe missing an element of reality because all June needed to do was log off social media. That would have solved her problem. And I understand that our relationship with social media was a main theme of the story, and some people do really give weight to people’s opinion of them on social media. But I would have liked to have had a bit more knowledge of the real world consequences for June. 

The setting wasn’t particularly gripping and that’s normally something that I look for. I love descriptions of places and things. I forgot where it was set at one point and thought it was England… Not a big deal though really as the location wasn’t really relevant to the story.

I’m growing to like stream of consciousness writing. It’s not something that I remember encountering until quite recently. It always makes me laugh how similar interior monologues are for everyone. You think your own interior monologue is odd until you read about it. 

It was very obvious that Yellowface was a commentary on the publishing world and social media. The characters are very opinionated, but I don’t think it felt forced. The characters were very eloquent in putting their views across which would make sense as they’re all writers. So although it was heavy on the opinions, it was presented in an easy-to-read way.

It was also obvious that Kuang wrote Athena’s character to match her. Which was nice and made sense within the story and the message that was being given within the book. It just struck me that Athena was presented as beautiful and successful and a literary genius. My own self-consciousness would never allow me to write myself so obviously in that way. Which is very judgemental of me. Most authors, when they write about themselves, focus on the negatives of their own character. It’s different to see it written in quite the opposite way. My initial reaction was that it was self-indulgent but actually, why not? It’s Kuang’s story so why shouldn’t she write herself into it as the best character.

Overall Yellowface was a very entertaining read. Kuang meshed her commentary on the publishing industry with June’s story very well. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in reading diverse voices, anyone who is interested in a fresh take on the publishing industry and the role of social media.