Yellowface: A Novel—A Chilling Novel of Racism and Cultural Appropriation from the author of Katabasis

“I know what you’re thinking. Thief. Plagiarizer. And perhaps, because all bad things must be racially motivated, Racist. Hear me out. It’s not so awful as it sounds.”
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Wow, “Yellowface.” This was such a fantastic read & I finished it in a single day. While it wasn’t on the same level as “Babel” (few books ever will be) it was such an interesting perspective to read in conjunction with the previous novel.

To start off: Kuang’s protagonist June Hayward (who later stylizes her name as Juniper Song) works well as an unreliable narrator. She withholds information, is incapable of seeing events from other people’s points of view, and generally thinks she’s smarter than she actually is. Her character reminded me a bit of narcissistic criminals who get caught because they either don’t know how to act like an innocent person, or they think they’re a mastermind who will never be caught.

June functions as a vessel for the larger conversations that “Yellowface” attracts, both in the novel’s world and our own. Early on in the book she steals her newly deceased friend’s unpublished manuscript and passes it off as her own; this, of course, is Very Bad. But the book’s own discourse surrounding the early days of her newfound literary success includes both criticism and praise for her writing & research of a little-known area of Chinese history. Is it okay to write about characters outside her own race? Had she not been marketed as possibly Asian herself, could some of the later fallout been avoided?

I have been continuously thinking about this book since I finished it, and while it does read as (on paper) similar to Kuang’s real life experiences—why is that a bad thing? Her commentary on June, Athena, and the publishing industry as a whole packs a heavy-hitting punch. But just as importantly, it forces her audience to confront our own understanding of the relationship between identity & art.

Another long drive audiobook, so I’m not in possession of the bandwidth to analyze the book’s central themes. I will say this: what started out as an exciting read quickly got bogged down by too much extra noise.Too much time spent on the publishing process, Twitter discourse, and the main character throwing her phone across the room sucked all the wind out of the sails of the beginning hook.

shows what happens when someone continues to be a victim instead of truly changing their ways and views. MC is pretty much an unreliable narrator which makes the read even more interesting. she never truly lets us in to what she’s really thinking until the very end when she begins to snap when confronting candice. i really loved the pacing of this book and could not put it down. really sad about the ending but i think it goes to show that MC is stuck in a mindset that is not looking for growth. i feel the anxiety parts of the MC though. this book also had a pretty good balance of current happenings in the real world- ESPECIALLY in the theme of what social media can do to you. not bad, not bad at all! would deff read a part twoooo

Why ending suck

5, 7.5, 8.5, 8, 2, 5 (Tracie's)