Yellowface by R F Kuang was hands down one of my most anticipated reads this year. Having recently done a lot of research into the exact topics this book delves into, I was beyond excited to see what Kuang had to offer this time around.
Thank you to The Borough Press and Harper Fiction for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Athena Liu is a literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody.
White lies…
When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own under the ambiguous name Juniper Song.
Dark humour…
But as evidence threatens June’s stolen success, she will discover exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
Deadly consequences…
What happens next is entirely everyone else’s fault.
Publication Date: 25th May
TW: death, racism, impersonation, gaslighting, manipulation
My Thoughts:
Yellowface quickly became one of my favourite reads of the year so far. This is just fantastic work from an author I full heartedly pledge allegiance to.
Kuang proves once again why she is one of my all time favourite authors. Her books are challenging, cerebral and inspire me to go off and learn so much more. Yellowface is a biting, sharp-edged satire on racism within publishing, the wider bookish world and asks who gets to control the narrative.
There is just something endlessly delectable about the way Kuang writes. It scratches the right part of my brain, with plenty of research being poured into it but also an incredible way of playing with characters, tropes and plotlines. This is very much a paranoid and tense thriller at times. We have a central mystery to unpick, but the focus is consummately on Athena, June and their complex relationship. Within this, Kuang has so many moments that make you recoil in recognition of how the publishing world works, from reviewing to wider media interest. There is a snake coiled at the heart of this book, dripping venom throughout. It is like being a fly on the office walls at time and emphasises just how much work there is left to do, as shown through constant diversity reports and the strike action that happened during the lead up to publication.
June is a fascinating protagonist, enmeshed in her privilege and constantly dropping these racist microaggressions that spiral into full-on racist rants. She is an interesting voice for Kuang to adopt, skewering a figure many of us can recognise. It is all in the subtext and internal biases that spill out into vitorial and sickening rhetoric. For me, it was the speed at which she decides to steal Athena’s story and from there, it is very much a Talented Mr Ripley level of manipulation to keep her fame and power that she feels she has always ‘deserved’.
Yellowface is an endlessly layered, thought-provoking and prodigious book from one of the best voices of our generation so far.
A Short Book Lover 
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