Review: Yellowface

 I kid you not I've been wanting to get my hands on this book since fucking forever. Like one of my friends from the book club server that I'm in totally recommended this, [they'd gotten an arc previously] and they wanted to know my thoughts on it, but I couldn't really acquire an arc for it because netgalley didn't have it for my area, so yeah, had to wait a while.

Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena's a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn't even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.

So when June witnesses Athena's death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena's just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I.

So what if June edits Athena's novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song--complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn't this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That's what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.

But June can't get away from Athena's shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June's (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

QUICK THOUGHTS AND REVIEW: 5/5, MINDFUCKED BUT IN A GOOD WAY, AN EXCELLENT WAY EVEN.

Possible Trigger Tags:

1. Racism

2. Use of racial slurs

3. Death threats

4. Cultural appropriation

5. Gaslighting

6. Toxic friendship

7. Mentions of sexual assault

WHAT DID I FEEL ABOUT THE  BOOK'S: 

1. Writing Quality: I've wholly been in love with Kuang's writing style ever since I actually read The Poppy War. One of the things I absolutely adore about Kuang's books is that they never, NEVER have unnecessary romance in them and focus majorly on the character development of the main character without having any unnecessary distractions. What I liked about this book even more, compared to Kuang's other works was that it was a contemporary novel, which, I must admit is something very different from what she usually writes. BUT HOLY FUCK SHE ATE? Like seriously, the narration is very crisp and witty and I really enjoy the flow of words that take place. And seriously, fantasy writers don't usually write contemporary but when they do, it's not really the same but R. F Kuang? SLAY. ABSOLUTELY SLAY.

2. Character Development: I have some words to say about this. 

Firstly, holy shit. There's literally only one character this entire novel is based on and one character that basically needs this analysis and holy shit, Holy fucking shit. I now understand why R. F. Kuang is the legend that she is. I'm yet to read Babel though, it's sitting prettily on my shelf like nothing.

Athena Liu: Athena Liu's character isn't much expanded upon in the novel, but she does have an extremely strong presence in the book, which, I mean of course, considering, it's her work that gets pushed around in the majority of the novel and I do feel like Athena's character was also Kuang's self insert in some ways. But other than that, I didn't get much about Athena from June's perspective, other than some perfect figure June has been portraying her as.

June: Okay, so words about June. June's character at some level feels utterly vulnerable to me because of the part where she's jealous of Athena and her success while she's failing. Like that part hits, because I know sometimes I'm not good enough at the stuff I do and I see people do it better than me and I get jealous. But anyways, it's more fun to see her character after she publishes Athena's final novel. Because that's when everything begins. She's like this 'no this is wrong' and I really love to see her character spiral down into this web of lies that she keeps building just to keep her initial lie intact. June says she isn't a bad person, and in some sense she really isn't, but to watch her descend lower from what she was, that is peak character development. Like I'm so tired of seeing bad characters turn good or characters doing better, and I do understand that this is what the readers want, but this feels like a realer version of what's happening because of the spiral down. Like you can see the desperation in June's voice emanating from the later half of the novel.

The descent of June's character from a nice person, to a jealous person, to a person who's just lying more and more to just let her veil not slip away, that actually feels more of a real person than anything else. We need more novels with characters like her. WHY ISN'T THIS A REALITY YET!?

3. Couldn't put it down- Ness: 10/10, I swear to fucking God this is my first five star read this year, I'm not even kidding bro.

4. Plot: Firstly, I do enjoy the plot because it's always nice to see the authors doing something against the toxicity inside the publishing industry, and also in reference to the current events of the Writer's Guild Strike. Also, it was great to see such familiarity with the plot and the circumstances and how the publishing industry worked. Being inside the industry for a while did give me an insight as to how the things worked and this book just made it even clearer for me. It certainly did feel like coming home to, in this novel. And sometimes wholly relatable as a writer.

Also have a cute pic because I felt like it. It's not Christmas yet, but anyway, cuteness doesn't really have a season.

OVERALL, A FANTASTIC READ, I might end up buying a physical copy of this soon enough.