this was a very fun read. i was OBSESSED with babel, and as soon as i heard the premise for this book, i was super excited to read it. i love social satire, and even though this book could get heavy-handed at times, r.f. kuang's talent kept me from rolling my eyes at moments i would have thought were ridiculous in the hands of a less-capable author.

june is a deeply unlikable narrator, and like i said, sometimes her lack of awareness/flat-out stupidity was a bit extreme. but her voice is one that everybody has heard before, and we all just want her to shut up--so how was i so enthralled from start to finish??

i can see the things that people wouldn't like about this book, but anyone would have to admit that it's well-written, the pacing is good (even when it felt like "nothing is happening" i couldn't look away), and it was funny. i was thoroughly entertained and that's what i want from a book.

thank you to netgalley for an arc.

4.25/5
Yellowface is a daring novel, one that I don't think any author but R.F. Kuang could have written.

It is a nuanced and confusing look into everything that is wrong with the publishing company, and what the capitalist wheel makes of its authors. The writing is raw and funny; the first time we see Kuang in a real environment with mentions of slang, social media and pop culture. And she does it extremely well.

Although the point of the story is the evil and leeching done by our main character June Hayward, we get a glimpse into how neither girl was a great person. There is a certain comedic and awestriking thrill in seeing our mc justify her actions, bringing you to the brink of accepting her point, then saying something absolutely asinine and reminding you that she is in the wrong. And it is such an eerie but satisfying ride to see the portrayal of how the tide of public opinion sways so rapidly, especially in the publishing industry, especially on Twitter.

This is somewhat of a novella by R.F. Kuang standards, and I devoured it so quickly! This was just so good, I highly highly recommend.

Oh, man. I read this a few days before Pamela Paul's awful column (yeah, redundant) about American Dirt, and it was one of those "satire can't touch the real world" moments. But this is still a fantastic look at the state of publishing.

I won't summarize the plot description to fill space, and presumable you've read that.

Basically, if you've followed Book Twitter (or BookTok, etc), or the state of publishing in generally over the last few years, this is a book for you (and I'm pretty sure it's not a book Kuang could have written earlier in her career, if only because the awareness of the publishing and review process is so clearly informed by what she's seen). It's witty, sometimes vicious, and also so engaging, it's almost impossible to put down.

What makes this really work for me is that while Juniper is unquestionably the bad actor, she's not classically mustache-twirling evil. She's someone who's hit some genuine lows in her life and who even has at least one very legitimate gripe against Athena. That makes her decisions to steal and her constant rationalizations (including letting folks be fired, benefitting from a sales boost because of right-wing support, etc) all the more interesting and painful. She's more Macbeth justifying his way down a path of evil to improve his station than Iago letting his jealousy drive him but having no compunctions about what he's doing.

Kuang gives Juniper a compelling voice, and populates her world with believable friends and foes alike. If I've got any minor quibbles (not enough to knock stars off), it's that the timeframe seems a bit too compressed (two book publications and tours/fallout happen in barely more than two years, and that includes time for the requisite "agent nags the author for new work" moment), and that the denouement itself does rely a little too much on Juniper -- who is often unselfaware, but not stupid -- falling for something pretty obvious. Neither of these stopped me from loving every page of this book.

I actually have not read Kuang's other books (I burnt out on mainstream SF/F after years reviewing it, and unless it's NK Jemisin or Robert Jackson Bennett, I'm years behind), but I've added the rest of her books to my library queue after reading this.

Most of the time I know exactly what I’m going to say about a book. This time I do not. R.F. Kuang has written a beautifully disastrous character that makes the reader think more in depth than most pieces of fiction-that-isn’t-literature will. This is a story that is going to consume you, and make you critically think about who and what the publishing industry, from authors to editors, is composed of. Everything considered, this book is coming out amidst a strike at HarperCollins (whomst is publishing this book) that calls for more diversity and better base pay for all employees.
As someone who is white, and who is incredibly interested in being a part of the publishing industry in any way, shape, or form, this book hits in a way that I expected it to. It’s a critique of how the industry runs, from petty authors, to the not so obvious racism, to the intricate sides and faces it can portray. It blurs the lines between right and wrong, so much so you didn’t want to root for the main character but it was hard to watch them fight against something they saw as right and that’s the narrative you’re being fed. It makes you think about the online book world, a commentary nailing its painful and horrible bad side, while also showing how layered in truth it can be. I felt an odd amount of sympathy but absolute hatred and disgust with June Hayward.
And it truly made me look inward at what I do, what I say, and what was being said by the book. Every last intricate detail.
I think everyone should read it, think about it, and talk about it.

This is a difficult title for me to review. If I could, I wouldn't give this a rating. I also want to preface this review by saying that I'm not sure this book should be marketed as literary fiction. I know that the lines between literary and contemporary fiction are extremely blurry, and even for myself, it really just comes to a certain vibe that I can't really explain very well. But I think selling this book as litfic does it a disservice, and will create certain expectations that I'm not sure the book necessarily lives up to. But I also think book genres are largely arbitrary so my concern here is less about the book itself and more of a worry about how this book will be received based on the litfic categorization.

For all intents and purposes, I'll say that I enjoyed this book. Like with Kuang's other books, this is extremely compulsively readable. I think that Juniper is such a train wreck of a character that you can't help but want to keep reading her story despite hating her, and this book ultimately explores the way people go through the wildest mental gymnastics to justify actions they do or should reasonably know is wrong.

I think that at this point, I have certain things that I expect from Kuang's writing, and she absolutely delivers on every single one of those - smart and cutting social commentary, addictive prose, and characters that feel real and nuanced. I think if you're looking for these things, you won't be disappointed with this book. Similarly with her previous books, the characters in this book are not likeable - in fact, they're quite reprehensible. If you're someone who doesn't like reading from the POV of an unlikeable character, perhaps this book won't be for you. However, I can't say that I didn't enjoy the experience of being in Juniper's annoying, racist head. It was oddly cathartic to read this book as someone who is very online and tuned in to the bookish community, and constantly seeing and being very frustrated at other (mostly white) reviewers prop up books about Asian history and culture by white authors.

Where I'm unsure about this book and why I can't exactly rate it is that I think this book is, at least in part, a bit of a self-insert for Kuang's own experiences in the publishing industry. I went into the book knowing this, and I actually was pleasantly surprised at how it didn't feel overly self-insert-ey, but at the same time, as someone who has consumed a LOT of Kuang's interviews over the last few years, there were definitely some moments throughout the book that felt like direct quotes from past interviews/talks, and they took me out of the story. I realize this won't be an issue for most readers, but it was something that did affected my reading experience, and is also something that makes me uncomfortable about slapping a rating on this since it does feel so personal to the author (similarly to how I don't like to rate memoirs).

Ultimately, I think it is a great contemporary debut for Kuang. It's thought-provoking enough, yet strangely fun, and I think that it will be an extremely divisive title. There will be people who will absolutely love the ride that Kuang is taking them on in Yellowface, there will be people who will deliberately interpret this book in the most facetious way possible, and there will be people who will unironically misinterpret the messaging in this book. And quite frankly, I think all that just goes to prove the point of this book, and I cannot wait to see what kind of chaos this book will bring once it's out in the world.

Did you read The Plot hoping for commentary on authorship and ownership and think to yourself “Oh, this is actually mostly a thriller with a twist I saw coming from a while back but it was pretty good I guess”? Great. Try Yellowface instead.

This book follows white author Juniper as she steals a manuscript from her dead, Asian, peer, Athena. Juniper edits the stolen first draft and publishes it under her own name. All the juicy questions (What is ownership when it comes to art? Come to that, what is theft when it comes to art? Who can tell which stories?) are answered by this deeply unlikeable and unreliable narrator in a way that makes you love to just fucking hate her.

I devoured this book in a day, and will be thinking of it for a long time.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC. All opinions expressed in the above review are my own.

Yellowface by R F Kuang is an absolute masterpiece. Once I started reading this book, I could not put it down.
Juniper and Athena are both writers, but when Athena's writing career has been a tremendous success, Juniper's has been struggling. When Athena dies, Juniper is there trying to save her. And if she happens to have Athena's newest unpublished novel in her possession? Well someone needs to edit and finish this masterpiece. Why shouldn't it be Juniper. And if Juniper happens to be a white woman when the book is historical fiction about Chinese laborers? Well, who says she couldn't have written it. And if her publisher recommends changing her last name from Hayward to Song? Well, that's just helping her career. However, how long can Juniper keep what she did a secret?
This book is so well written and all-engrossing. Kuang did such a good job of making the narrator the villain while managing to have so many other villains surrounding her. This is the best book I've read so far this year.

Couldn’t put this down. An addictive story full of zingers and insider publishing baseball, narrated by someone I despised down to my toes yet somehow couldn’t get enough of. No one escapes unscathed! Funny, brutal and full of absurdities that point directly to truth—just what good satire should be.

Finally, a book for the extremely online!!!

I read Yellowface in one evening with the same kind of manic masochism that comes from reading really good internet drama, the kind that is guaranteed to make you feel awful once you put the phone down. An absolutely addictive read to watch the rise and fall of our protagonist and the evolution of her jealousy into full deranged racist paranoia.

Girlies. This is a funny book. It made me laugh out loud. Truly a spot-on portrayal of internet Discourse and the never-ending rabbit burrows of information being withheld and lost and twisted. It’s so meta and on the nose and even self-referential to RFK’s other work. The blatant self-satirization and focus on the made up, realer-than-real world of literary twitter may seem self indulgent — and it is — but it is also so fucking funny. RFK has all the subtlety of a hammer but every single goddamn time it is so entertaining.

RFK’s protagonists love to spiral into abject misery and once again she has evoked that kind of close, emotional intimacy, dragging us into the head of her protagonist and spitting us out with a “hey that was SOOO fucked up huh?” Yes it was. Yes it was.

RFK’s critique of Whiteness, or maybe White Womaness, is scathing but also informed by illustrating that Juniper's vitriol has such a human element, and it is that human emotion that makes her development hatred so nasty. Because Juniper is an unreliable narrator, the emotional tangle of love, fear, and authorship between Juniper and Athena remains unsolved. We can’t ever really know how close Athena and Juniper were, if they really loved or hated one another, or if Juniper’s jealous fixation on Athena was something created all in her own head. RFK does a fantastic job of raising just enough doubt about Athena's own ethics on plagiarism and ownership to keep the reader "rooting" for Juniper — surely we can make it out with some consensus on who stole what from who?

Nope! Juniper disconnects from reality with layer upon layer of jealousy, insecurity, real grievance, money, race, and sheer obliviousness until it all builds up and Juniper goes fucking mad. The nuance has indeed made Juniper go insane because she’s rehashed Athena’s memory too many times, turned it into a villain of her own making. It's this perpetual uncertainty that elevates the story from on-the-nose satire into classic tragedy. Quite simply, Juniper never needed to do all that. The simple audacity of taking that manuscript in the first place. Insane white behavior, etc. It's that single thoughtless entitlement that dooms Juniper.

Yellowface tackles maybe the unique flavor of racism in ivy educated white liberal women, showing how bigotry can be so mundane and fucking deranged batshit at the same time. Juniper cast aside any and all of her political or moral persuasions in order to grab as much money and power as she can — to make herself feel good.

Anyway I loved the line re: Taylor Swift unwitting(?) Nazi mascot.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Wow!! This one is already everywhere and for great reason. It's extremely readable and propulsive (especially in the first half) yet still hits industry specifics about writing/publishing in a way that (IMO) both writers and non-writer readers will appreciate. This book is a great deep dive into professional jealousy, comparison to others, and writer rivalries. More importantly, it tackles appropriation, own voices, and plagiarism--whew! It's a great and smart read, and I'm certain everyone will be talking about this one when it's out.

I’m a little at a loss for words on this one. What is apparently going to be the most divisive book of 2023 has left me feeling kind of… middling. Maybe my expectations were too high after Babel was my favourite book of 2022, or maybe by expectations were too skewed after a complete genre shift from Poppy War. A lot of people have said that Kuang clearly had a hard time separating herself from her work, but I don’t spend any time on Twitter nor do I delve deep into the backgrounds of author’s lives, so I can’t comment on this. The bottom line for me is that where this book tried to be meta, it just made the reader sympathize with the MC (who is, unless I’m missing *the point*, the villain). And where it tried to be satirical, it was downright ridiculous. I thought I knew where the end was going (with a totally meta plot twist where the entire book itself is actually the final book Juniper writes, in order to address all her critics, of whom we don’t get to hear the final critiques or the outcome of the court of public opinion, because we are in fact just reading the book she wrote and not *a book*. Even trying to sentence that out felt too meta. But to me, it did seem like a clever way to conclude it). The conclusion, instead, went entirely left field, leaving no one to root for unless you want to root for the subtly racist, plagiarizing MC who you don’t know how to feel about anymore because you’ve just spent 300 pages completely inside of her head. The worst part is you’re more likely to root for the objectively terrible MC than you are for almost any of the Asian characters, who are also painted terribly. Long story short, I don’t know how to feel except that I know I’m supposed to feel something but I’m confused what that something is supposed to be. Is that how I’m supposed to feel? The only thing I know for sure is the publishing industry sucks — which is really poignant timing considering the publisher is literally facing a strike right now.

Short and simple review: literary obfuscation with no clear directive, but super engaging and easy to read.

I couldn’t put this book down!! Skipped meals, breaks and other urgent things to keep reading!! I did however call my daughter to tell her she should start reading Yellowface right away. A 5 star book where I learned so much inside scoop about the publishing world.

This book was totally entertaining. I read it in one day during a recent power outage and it was the perfect companion! I found myself hoping June/Juniper would be successful despite her deception, and watching her convince herself that her lies are true just made me hope she got away with it. even more.. The ending was a bit implausible, but played into her state of mind after years of getting away with her lies. This book also made me realize how important it is to the author to write reviews on ARCS. Great insight into the publishing world, if it was all true.

They say you should write the book that only you can write. Well, no one else but R.F. Kuang could have written YELLOWFACE. A brilliant and unflinching take on white perfomativity and publishing. I'm not exaggerating when I say that Kuang is one of the most important voices in publishing today.

I was gifted a digital edition of this book by Harper Collins in exchange for an honest review.

SUCH A GOOD BOOK! Overall, I would give it a 4.5/5. I devoured it in 24 hours because I couldn’t wait to know what happened next. It’s a bit didactic, but is not heavy handed. It covers so many topics like white supremacy, racism, privilege, and more in a way that’s really accessible for readers and lays out the facts clearly. It’s also just pure entertainment, with fantastic and (at times) shocking twists. Loved it.

I do wonder if the criticisms in the book are her own and if there’s any self inserting. It doesn’t take away from the plot at all, but I was curious as I was reading.

This is my first Kuang book, but definitely won’t be the last!

Wow. I don't think I've finished a book this fast since high school. It's one of those books you simply can't put down once you start. It's definitely divided away from RF Kuang's other works but I genuinely feel like no one else could have written this. It was such a scathing look at white fragility, white femininity, and white mediocrity while also being about the right to tell a story from specific perspectives. It also doesn't pull any punches against the publishing industry and it's insistence on being as racist as possible while trying to appear inclusive on the surface. It really paints a picture on the publishing world today and I hope it makes people uncomfortable. Really great read.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for this ARC.

This is a stressful read--at least for me--but also a compelling one, and I found myself yearning for June to lose everything while also feeling her terror at the possibility. The story is told in this very clinical, distant way, a sort of "this happened, and then this happened" style where it's impossible to get close to any particular character. I liked that about it, but I imagine it may alienate readers who have to connect with avatars within a story in order to enjoy it.

I did have some issues with the plot, though. The application of "Athena's ghost" as a device is super uneven; we see her at the book launch, and then never again until the end of the book. The climax at the very end descends into silly mainstream thriller territory, and it's a weird juxtaposition with the relatively quiet, indoor drama of the rest of the book.

I really enjoyed the first 80% of this book, even though the last 20% was too goofy for me. I don't know if folks outside of the book world/publishing-adjacent industries will find it interesting, but I liked the Jeanine-Cummins-meets-Bad-Art-Friend of it all, and I'm excited to hear what other people think when it comes out.

I adore Kuang's fantasy books and was thrilled to read something different by her. Unfortunately, I didn't love this. I still think Kuang is a genius (honestly I feel very unworthy leaving her writing anything other than an over-the-top in-love review), and there were some very funny/smart/sharp moments. However, as someone who works in the book world, perhaps this was a little too ripped-from-the-headlines for me, so I often didn't feel like I was reading anything novel. Also, perhaps it's because I read this all in one sitting (long plane read), but it felt repetitive. That being said, I am very excited to see the reception to this book when it comes out and listen to all the smart people talk about it. I think it's a great discussion book!

I dug this. Modern commentary on so many relevant topics today. I hated everyone in this, and usually that's a big turn off for me, but it didn't bother me here. The final third felt a little quick compared to the rest of the story and I'm still mulling over how I feel about the ending.

This book is absolutely sharp and pointed like a knife. I'm not sure if I'm quite the person to review it - I found the critique timely and effective, although I did think the pacing sagged a bit in the middle.