Almost Great

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book is immensely readable, for that I give it 3.5 stars. However, there are at least four books shoehorned into one. As an author myself, the whole ghastly reality of watching one of your peers become wildly successful for no particular reason is one I admit made me squirm (a lot). The criticism of social media's ability to cancel people, rebuild them, and re-cancel them reminded me of the treatment of JKR. As a white woman, and a boomer, I feel unqualified to comment on the racism, except that judging people on the basis of their race, religion or skin colour is just plain wrong. Plagiarism is a whole seperate topic. This book is almost great, but it lurches from one topic to the other and then finishes up with a bizarre ghost segment which completely threw me. It's a pity. Any one of the four topics would have made a fantastic book but I felt seasick with the constant lurching between them. Yes, it's easy to read and often fascinating, but it's also a hot mess with no discernable genre. Only famous authors can get away with a book like this (yes, I am envious) and if you write like Kuang can, that's fair enough.



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