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Yellowface

R.F. Kuang

Start date: July 1, 2025

Finish date: July 31, 2025

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What Members Thought

Feb 05, 2024 Christi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, 2024-reads

I saw a review for this book that declared it "hilariously awful and awfully hilarious." It is the perfect description of this book. Juniper Song Hayward is such an unlikeable, unreliable narrator. What a trip following along with her rationalizations, machinations and scheming. This was also great look into the behind the pages of the publishing industry. Fantastic book. ...more

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Jun 24, 2023 Jessica (BlogEared Books) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Wow. This book is fantastic. It’s the first book I’ve read by R.F. Kuang but will not be the last. I devoured this book. I was hooked after only a few pages in and didn’t fully set it down until I was finished.

I did pause. A lot.

And I hope everyone who reads this ( and I believe everyone should read this) pauses. Digests. Recognizes. Applies. And reads more.

Every paragraph I write to describe the emotions this invoked seems inadequate. This is an important book. A reminder to be better. To re ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Mar 01, 2024 Jessica rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, race, mystery, listened-to, writing

June and Athena were writing students at Yale and remained in professional contact while Athena's career soared and June's floundered. Sometimes their relationship crosses into what June might call friendship, but she wasn't sure. June happens to be present when Athena dies unexpectedly and has an opportunity to take Athena's unpublished manuscript which she takes.

Engaging and kept me wondering just how far June would go to cover up her first transgression and ensure her success. Brings up inte ...more

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Jun 07, 2023 Bruin Mccon rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library-ebook, race, set-in-dc-metro, pub-2023

It’s so fucking arbitrary. Or perhaps not arbitrary, but it hinges on factors that have nothing to do with the strength of one’s prose. Athena—a beautiful, Yale-educated, international, ambiguously queer woman of color—has been chosen by the Powers That Be. Meanwhile, I’m just brown-eyed, brown-haired June Hayward, from Philly—and no matter how hard I work, how well I write, I’ll never be Athena Liu.

Yellowface is the story of a white writer who convinces herself that she has been the victim of d It’s so fucking arbitrary. Or perhaps not arbitrary, but it hinges on factors that have nothing to do with the strength of one’s prose. Athena—a beautiful, Yale-educated, international, ambiguously queer woman of color—has been chosen by the Powers That Be. Meanwhile, I’m just brown-eyed, brown-haired June Hayward, from Philly—and no matter how hard I work, how well I write, I’ll never be Athena Liu.

Yellowface is the story of a white writer who convinces herself that she has been the victim of diversity and deserves to borrow her friend’s novel draft.

Meet unreliable narrator Juniper who watches her friend die and grabs her completed first draft of a new novel and then edits and submits it as her own.

Athena Ling En Liu—is cool; well done, Mr. and Mrs. Liu, to choose a perfect combination of the classical and exotic. Born in Hong Kong, raised between Sydney and New York, educated in British boarding schools that gave her a posh, unplaceable foreign accent; tall and razor-thin, graceful in the way all former ballet dancers are, porcelain pale and possessed of these massive, long-lashed brown eyes that make her look like a Chinese Anne Hathaway.

It is unclear if the above description is correct given that Junie has an interesting relationship with the truth. She says repeatedly that she saw Athena’s panicked eyes when she died, which seems to be an unsubtle hint that while the narrator describes it as she couldn’t save her, the truth is maybe she could have saved her life with a quicker call to 911. She also describes Athena as a frenemy but then seems to have hung out with her quite a bit as if they were close friends.

I bask in imagining my critics’ crestfallen faces as they realize that simply being Asian doesn’t make them historical experts, that consanguinity doesn’t translate into unique epistemological insight, that their exclusive cultural snobbishness and authenticity testing are only a form of gatekeeping, and that when it all comes down to it, they haven’t a fucking clue what they’re talking about.

If you thought letting a close friend die in front of you was bad, consider stealing her heavily researched draft, rewriting it, and shopping it as your own work. Thing is, almost immediately there is chatter that it seems like perhaps it was written by Athena. Juniper tries to cover her tracks and pretend she and Athena exchanged notes on it but…no one is buying it.

There’s also this statement from Xiao Chen, which, honestly, I’ll take: This book is so racist that it’s obvious only a white person could have written it.

The thing is, Juniper is not just casually racist. Sure, she complains that she’s crowded out from the field because she is white. Reverse racism is raised. She’s fairly delusional, not only overestimating her own writing abilities, but also playing down to herself how much she took from her friend. She claims Athena stole from her so it’s fair. She laughs at the alt-right buying up her book and then enjoys the fruits of their buyer’s defense (tl;dr is they are fighting against cancel culture by doing so).

I don’t feel better. I feel like a meme of a clueless white person.

I read a few raving reviews of this novel and a few that felt this was a fairly lazy showing by the author. I think there are valid criticisms but overall, this was an interesting premise and feels so true to life. It can be a risk to have such a dislikable narrator; the character endorses views the author doesn’t, and due to the unreliable nature of her telling, there isn’t enough nuance to the views. You get the knee jerk bias and then a muted defense. ...more

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May 23, 2023 Karen D rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-stars, race, zzcontemporary, contemporary-fiction

I was intrigued by the premise of this, hooked by the writing immediately, and found that it just got better and better as the book went along.
*
The basic premise has been done before--a writer with a lackluster career steals the manuscript of a literary superstar--but this was done in such an interesting way. There's of course the ethics involved in the decision to take the manuscript, and the logic June uses to justify to herself what she did.
*
But there's also the race element here--June is a ...more

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Dec 03, 2023 JenniferC rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2023-reads

Juniper Song’s biggest fear is to the leave the world insignificant and unremembered. Isn’t that the challenge all writers face? Writers want their stories to be timeless and impactful. The stories should provoke social change and speak against injustices. An opportunity presents itself for Juni to publish a book that would make all of her dreams a reality - the only catch - all little bit of moral ambiguity. This delightful story gives readers a glimpse of the glamour and pitfalls of the publis ...more

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