Yellowface by R.F. Kuang (SPOILER REVIEW)

I received an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my thoughts in any way. Thank you to the publisher (and a huge thank you to the Harper Collins Union for all the work they did in getting a fair contract!).

This review may contain spoilers for “Yellowface” by R.F. Kaung. Please read at your own discretion

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I would like to also preface this by saying that there are several trigger warnings to be aware of: death (on page), racism, panic attacks/disorders, sexual assault, rape, suicidal thoughts. I’m not sure if the author has published a complete list of trigger warnings but those are the ones I’d taken from Storygraph. For the book page, you can click here, scroll to the bottom and click on “content warnings”. If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to send me a DM on Instagram and I will let you know how severe some of these things are!

This is a difficult book to review. I frankly think that I am too close to the book and publishing world, as well as Kuang as an author, to be able to review this from a very distanced point of view but I will try nonetheless.

Kuang is a talented writer. She is Chinese-American, she is clearly incredibly intelligent. That being said, Athena felt so much like a self-insert and I guess it makes sense because as the quote goes “write what you know” and Kuang really did. She wrote indirectly about the experience of a young, attractive, smart Chinese-American woman and directly the experience of a white woman who felt like the Chinese woman had it all. Publishing of course, as revealed by the end, forced Athena to write only about Chinese experiences.

As for June…I’m not even sure how I felt - her being a white woman who stole her friend’s work about something so deeply personal was definitely something stomach turning. But then there was a moment where it was revealed that Athena stole - she stole from strangers, from her ex-boyfriend and finally from June. Sure I felt bad but man, I started hating Athena too because how dare she? She stole from the poor Korean veteran, she took things from her ex-boyfriend, she stole June’s story of what happened with the guy in university (don’t want to trigger anyone but ya know, yeah, that’s what happened) and didn’t seem apologetic about it all because hey, she’s a diversity point in publishing.

At first, when I read that “Athena dies in a freak accident”, I thought it would have been like a car crash or something but Athena ends up choking on food and dies. The reason why I thought it would be a car crash is that then it could be easily faked and then June steals the manuscript, publishes it, blah blah blah, and then Athena seemingly comes back from the dead and says that she purposefully put the plan in action to see what June would do. I also didn’t like how quickly Candice was dismissed - even if she wasn’t Chinese, it’s clear that she was trying to stand up for the Asian community in solidarity because if she didn’t, she would definitely have been ripped to shreds because she’s Asian and didn’t see the problem with the clearly problematic way that Chinese labour workers were represented and the way that some are described? I mean, again, that’s just me being close to publishing and the book world speaking. As a book blogger, the irony of reviewing a book about someone who stole a manuscript and the whole book being a full-on critique of the publishing world and how it treats People of Colour is not lost on me. It’s there and I know which is why it feels weird, to a certain extent.

Kuang created an interesting character when it comes to June - she’s the textbook definition of a white woman who wants success and who is so blind to the hardships her friend faced that you can’t help but hate her for saying things like “publishing loves Athena because diversity” and really, to some extent, she’s not wrong - publishing loves Athena because diversity matters but readers love Athena because she writes unapologetically as herself. I really found it interesting how Athena managed to let all the Chinese words sans explanation gets passed her agent and editors when this is a huge topic of discussion within the publishing community - as BIPOC authors, if one speaks another language, do we owe it to the reader to explain every single term? Or can we just let them research it themselves because we don’t want to give all the answers on a silver platter? Do we use italics to differentiate from the English or do we just let it sit as if it was part of a sentence and the most normal thing (because it is?) I’m getting ahead of myself but that’s a conversation for another day. I personally love when authors add words from their native languages and don’t exactly give us an explanation (sometimes they do at the end which is greatly appreciated but it’s fun to Google it yourself).

Athena, on the other hand, doesn’t get much spotlight but man is the relationship between her and June so interesting to read about. They clearly both hate each other to a certain degree but then they still stick to each other? Like talk about pure toxicity. Judging from the other reviews, I think a lot of people found the friendship between June and Athena interesting because it was so messed up. It’s also like a reluctant alliance but then they talk shit behind the other’s back.

I think that’s all I’m really going to say because then I can go on forever without really getting to an end.

I also don’t think I’m entirely ready to rate this one - it’s difficult because I read this as not only a reader but also as a book influencer - I know Athena’s as much as I know June’s. Quite a few of them.

You can get the book here!

Love,

Mila