Yellowface
Fiction
William Morrow
May 16, 2023
Hardcover/Audio
336
Purchased/Library
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena's a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn't even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.
So when June witnesses Athena's death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena's just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I.
So what if June edits Athena's novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song--complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn't this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That's what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.
But June can't get away from Athena's shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June's (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface takes on questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation not only in the publishing industry but the persistent erasure of Asian-American voices and history by Western white society. R. F. Kuang's novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.
My review:
This one reminded me a lot of another favorite from a few years ago, A Ladder to the Sky. The same idea of a writer using someone else's work, and passing it off as their own. There were definitely some differences between the two books, but both were 5 star reads for me! This book dealt much more with the actual publishing industry, and the ins and outs of who gets more pre-publication industry "help" to rack up sales. Fun to read about from someone on the receiving end of publicists and book hype! This also was much more of a look at race, and how that effects the writing/publishing process. There has certainly been lots of buzz lately about books needing to be written as own voices (remember the American Dirt controversy?.....google it). The author of this book goes as far as using a more Asian sounding name and an ambiguous author photo to not be called out. And when she is, the dark and tense part of the story takes hold.
This was a riveting read! Even though none of the characters were likable, they were still written in a way that made you not sure who you wanted to come out on top. Definitely worth a read as long as you don't have to like your characters.
