THIS WAS SO GOOD. I love R.F. Kuang but it is always nerve-wrecking to have a favorite author switch up their genre but when you've got a great writer on your hands, like Kuang, there is nothing to fear. I hate to say it but this is a perfect book to go into without a ton of information on the story's content because Kuang's storytelling is all you will need. This is really a title that I will need to re-read pretty soon because there is SO much to unpack and I cannot wait. This was perfect and I loved every moment of it.

Thank you to NetGalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

4.5/5 stars. How do I even begin this review? YELLOWFACE by R.F. Kuang follows a white woman named June Hayward who witnesses her friend Athena Liu die, steals her dead friend's unfinished manuscript, and then claims it as her own. This literary thriller tackles the publishing industry, social media culture, and the weaponization of social justice language and mental health language in today's society. It keeps readers guessing until the very end. I will read and recommend anything R.F. Kuang writes!

I was lucky enough to receive an advanced copy of Yellowface by R. F. Kuang from @harpercollinsca and oh. my. god. I cannot wait for this to be in more readers hands so I can talk about it!!!

I am still thinking about this book and had to take a couple of days after finishing it to write this review. I absolutely adored it. This is one of the most refreshing pieces of satire I’ve read since I finished my undergrad, and while Juniper is one of the most infuriating perspectives to read from, the choice to focus this story on her and her perspective was a great one in terms of satire. It was very obvious where some of the plot points were taken from Kuang’s own life and publishing journey, and the moments focused on social media, specifically the hellsite that is Twitter, we’re absolutely perfect and hilarious. This story is not only funny, and makes fun of the whiteness of publishing, cancel culture, and the world of writing on social media, but it also is a dark and psychologically fraught look into the mind of someone who genuinely thinks that they are more deserving of success than others. I can totally understand where the satire was just too much for some readers and it made it hard for them to read, but for me, that made me get through it even faster. I mean, my consistent thought was “It can’t possibly get worse than this, can it?” Reader, it did. It was like watching a car crash, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away, which was exactly the point.

I think everyone should give this one a go, it comes out on May 25th, and it was a clear ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for me!

Yellowface is my first R.F. Kuang novel and it did not disappoint. There is no question that Kuang's writing is addicting - witty and filled with satire, Yellowface is an uncomfortable, but realistic look at the publishing industry and its inner workings.

June is incredibly insufferable and does what Kuang set out to accomplish with her character, an unreliable narrator who is ignorant and consciously (and unconsciously) racist and ploys her way to success by stealing her counterpart's work after she passes.

One of the best things this book highlights is this notion of who is allowed to tell stories of marginalized groups, something of debate for sometime on social media platforms. However, Kuang places another level of complexity to it and also makes us question whether or not someone from said marginalized group, but without any direct experience, should be allowed to tell those stories too. While Athena is Chinese, she is still very much Asian-American with no real ties from the story she drafted about Chinese labor workers. Is she allowed to tell these stories too?

The ending was a bit unsatisfying, but also makes sense from the perspective of June as a white woman. Overall, a really solid read. Thought this would be an easier introduction to Kuang's works and I was not wrong.

While Yellowface is distinctly different than The Poppy War and Babel both in terms of genre as well as pacing, this book still feels written by the same author so I expect many fans of her previous works to enjoy this as well.

This satirical/meta literary fiction (with some thriller elements) is very fast-paced and extremely hard to put down (a complete change in feel from the experience of reading Babel which is great in its own way). It sucks you in immediately - especially if you're a reader like me who has been plugged into the online book community and aware of the many dramas that have unfolded over the past few years. The messy drama between messy characters and their messy relationships (particularly between June and Athena) are like a train wreck - it's so awful it's hard to look away. This book is also a fascinating and important look at systemic racism within the publishing industry and I can tell that when this is released there will be lots of discussion surrounding the themes explored throughout..

3.5 stars

I’m honestly not sure how to feel about this one. Part of me wants to approach this from the satire angle, which helps me to not take this story so seriously and thereby enables me to tamp down my frustration and anger at the plethora of “problematic” actions and behaviors of all the characters in the story. The other part wants to approach this from the angle of a necessary commentary on the dark and ruthless underbelly of the publishing industry, the toxicity of social media, the rise of online book communities, and of course, the most front and center hot button topic in recent years — racism and social justice. Regardless of which angle though, one thing I do need to make clear is that I’m approaching this book from the position of not having read any of R.F. Kuang’s previous works and also not having much knowledge of her background or history as an author. I feel this is an important distinction to make because, just glancing through the mixed bag of reviews and ratings on Goodreads, it’s pretty obvious that this book is going to provoke strong reactions in readers that will vary greatly depending on each person’s background, experiences, and also familiarity with the author and/or her works. (As a side note, it seems that most of the negative reviews of this book on Goodreads seem to focus on the “meta” aspect of the story as it pertains to Kuang’s own background and interactions related to her previous works — while these observations may be completely valid, this was an angle that did not concern me given my lack of familiarity with the author, so it won’t be a focus of this review).

Kuang actually covers a lot of ground with this book in terms of topics — in addition to the commentary on hot button issues mentioned earlier, the story also explores cultural appropriation, colonialism, systemic racism, cyber bullying, the current political environment, censorship, toxic friendships, recent debates about who should be allowed to tell which stories, etc. While so many of these topics are important and should be brought up for discussion, I have to admit that it felt like too much all at once, to the point that, at times, I felt I was being bombarded with one issue after another after another, making it difficult to process my thoughts (which, to me, was necessary given how “heavy” so many of the topics were). I honestly think that the story would’ve been a less overwhelming experience (and hence a more powerful and effective story) if it had focused less on trying to cover all bases and instead, focused on only a few topics to explore more in depth.

Aside from the subject matter, the other thing that made this book a difficult read, at least for me, was the fact that all of the characters in the story were hugely unlikable, with the main protagonist June Hayward (aka Juniper Song) being particularly loathsome and pathetic (it also didn’t help that the entire story was narrated from June’s first person point of view, so we were stuck listening to her endless excuses and whining the whole time). It’s honestly hard to enjoy a story when you hate the main character and have no one else to root for because all the supporting characters were also annoying.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a provocative story with so many topics that could actually be debated ad nauseam and probably we would never be able to come to an agreement on anything. One of the central issues that the story dives into — and the one most resonant for me — is the idea of who gets to tell what story. In theory, I don’t have a problem with an author “going outside their lane” so to speak — in this instance, a white author writing an Asian story — as long as it’s done correctly, which in my book means doing so respectfully and as authentically as possible (though yes, there is also the argument about how this takes the opportunity away from a marginalized author to tell the same story, which I also agree with, but that’s a whole separate debate altogether and not really the focus of this story). But I think what happens in Yellowface actually goes beyond this (who should get to tell the story) — technically, it’s not about whether June, who is white, should be allowed to tell a story about Chinese history and culture, as the fact of the matter is that the original story was written by her friend Athena Liu (who is Chinese). The real issue here is that, when Athena dies unexpectedly, June “takes” the manuscript and publishes it as her own. Sure, June makes a lot of edits to the manuscript and even “rewrites” large chunks of it, since Athena’s version was unfinished (this is important because June clings to this throughout the story as her main “justification” for why the story belongs to her and hence she did nothing wrong). Even so, June had the choice to go down the proper path with this — that is, to credit Athena for coming up with the story and writing majority of it, and to attach herself as collaborator in finishing and editing it (there is a scene where June actually considers doing this). But she deliberately chooses not to and that, friends, is the crux of the problem. To me, once June made that choice, nothing else mattered — I no longer cared what excuses or justifications she gave (believe me, she gave PLENTY), or what “factually” happened or didn’t happen (i.e.: “I didn’t mean to take it, I was just curious” or “I never ‘pretended’ to be Chinese so it’s not cultural appropriation” or “Athena is a bad person because she stole from me first”, etc). At that point, it was hard not to view June in a negative light for the rest of the story.

Of course, it probably also doesn’t help June’s case that I’m Chinese myself and am intimately familiar with the language and culture, which means that I understood most of the nuances in Athena’s manuscript, so June’s actions come across as even more egregious in my view. There was one passage in particular that got me seething mad (yes, THAT passage in which June’s complete ignorance of Chinese culture is put on full display) — thinking about it now though, it strikes me that perhaps this may have been intentional on the author’s part, as there is no way that anyone with even a passing knowledge of Chinese language and culture wouldn’t be triggered by the “edits” that June makes to the script. Speaking of which, the other thing that really bothered me was June’s attitude — specifically the utter delight and glee with which she “changed” Athena’s creation. The entire section that details June’s “editing sessions” was honestly very painful to read — not just from the perspective of someone who knows the culture, but also from the perspective of a writer who has spent countless hours on a project, only to see someone else come in and happily “butcher” it. And then, to add further insult to injury, there’s this passage, where June’s editor Daniella tells her at the end of the sessions: “You are so wonderfully easy to work with. Most authors are pickier about killing their darlings” to which June’s immediate reaction is “This makes me beam. I want my editor to like me. I want her to think I’m easy to work with, that I’m not a stubborn diva, that I’m capable of making any changes she asks for. It’ll make her more likely to sign me on for future projects.” Needless to say, I wanted to punch June’s lights out by that point (and this was only at the 15% mark in the story, unfortunately).

Overall, in terms of literary merit, I feel that this book is definitely worth reading (and to some extent, it’s actually a necessary read from the social commentary aspect), but like I said earlier, what the reading experience is going to be like will depend on how close you are to the subject matter. Given my background, reading this book was obviously not a pleasant experience for me (hence why I rated this the way I did), but that does not mean others will feel the same way. With that said, I do think that, with this book in particular, given so many triggering elements to it, the best course of action might be to check out as many reviews as possible (both positive and negative) before making the decision whether to pick it up. I had heard that this book is actually a departure from R.F. Kuang’s usual style and while I can’t comment on that, I will say that the unpleasant experience with this one hasn’t discouraged me from wanting to read her previous works. I have both Babel and The Poppy Wars trilogy on my shelves and I do intend to read both at some point down the line.

Received ARC from William Morrow via NetGalley.

thank you to netgalley for the advanced reading copy of yellowface by r. f. Kuang. this was a fantastic story of the horrible ideal of if i stole this will i can make it my own. this spiraling story of the guilt over her friends death and the backlash after getting called out of racism, theft, and even murder at some points. this was a fantastic story about the unlikely and what would happen if you took advantage of a situation such as this.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this, even tho I didn't love it. There was not a single likeable character in this book, I wasn't rooting for anyone. The social commentary was very heavy handed and almost insulting in some instances. Honestly, at a loss for how to even really review this right now, maybe I will have better words after digesting this for a bit. #netgalley #yellowface

What in the world did I just read?

Yellowface is my first Kuang novel and boy is it a doozy. I have a feeling that this book is going to be very polarizing and readers are going to feel very strongly one way or the other.

Love it or hate it, Yellowface is one compulsive read oozing satire and shock value about topics such as cultural appropriation, cancel culture, racism, diversity, the inner workings of the publishing industry, and more.

If you're looking for something to blow your mind, be it good or bad, then get your hands on this book!

Thanks to NetGalley, William Morrow, and the author for this advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Yellowface is an amazing satire where I love to hate every single character.

On the night of Athena Liu's death, June steals Athena's final manuscript and proceeds to publish it as her own using a racially ambiguous name. But as speculations of her misdeads come to light, June suspects she is haunted by Athena's ghost.

This book is very character driven and a commentary of publishing at every aspect along the way. Every person in the novel is a characterization of all the worst parts of the publishing and book industry. It highlights the discrepencies between treatment of white and cis-het authors as compared to their marginalized counterparts. It showcases how publishing can be an author's greatest ally or their greatest frenemy. It picks apart everything that is hypocritical about the industry of books.

I really enjoyed that Kuang drew on real life people and events for her inspiration of her characters and plots. While everything is a satire, it is far from fictitious. But by putting the worst of everything on the page, it makes the readers question what is right and wrong and if certain discussions, such as plagiarism, authenticity, and cancel culture, can be easily seen as black and white.

This was another book I had a hard time rating. R.F. Kuang is one of my favorite authors, and I am a massive fan of The Poppy War trilogy and Babel.

I enjoyed this overall and believe the social commentary is spot on and super important. I also think Kuang was brilliant in choosing to narrate from June’s perspective. However, it just lacked that “wow” factor for me. It held my attention enough and it’s a quick and easy read, but I wasn’t enthralled by it like I had been by her previous work.

As her first thriller novel, it’s solid. But I wasn’t crazy about how the plot unraveled; the climax felt a bit rushed.

I could be being overly critical since I know what she’s capable of, but I just can’t stack this next to her other works and say I REALLY liked it. A+ for social commentary, but I’d give it a B for plot. I would still recommend though given the important conversation she contributes to so well

First of all thank you so so so so much to William Morrow for the ARC of Yellowface. I dropped everything to listen to this!
I think Kuang nailed the satire and I loved how meta this book got. It's possible that my knowledge about book social media and (to a lesser extent) the publishing industry made me appreciate this book more.
With the story itself, I thought Kuang presented the mood of the unreliable narrator really well. The novel felt claustrophobic sometimes (in a good way), and there was a lot of cringing.
For the audio narration, I loved the narrator and thought she captured the tone of the novel really well.
Overall I found this one to be quite entertaining and engaging and now I'm curious to read anything extra on how Kuang came to this idea.

I ADORED this book. Such a fascinating, funny look at the publishing industry. Who gets to decide which stories get told, and by whom? A super timely & important discussion. I devoured this!

Yellowface is a brilliant work of metafiction that resists any easy answers. Kuang does not default to the easy platitudes of "the capitalistic nature of the publishing industry is bad for everyone", which ignores how the industry is much more hostile to BIPOC authors, or "cancel culture is good/bad actually", which ignores how Twitter drama can both speak truth to power and cannibalize its own, or even "all writers steal!" which ignores the context of colonization, exoticization, and appropriation when that theft targets BIPOC voices. The narrator is deeply and intentionally unlikeable, cringeworthy and painfully realistic in her mental gymnastics to justify unjustifiable actions. This is a book for writers and readers especially, anyone familiar with the compulsion writers feel to write and the pitfalls of reality when art, identity, and consumption intersect.

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang grabs you from the first page and doesn't let go. This book is a ruthless look at the many problems in the publishing industry and online book community wrapped up in a page-turning story that I couldn't put down. R.F. Kuang continues to showcase her whip-smart and engaging story-building. Her writing is intelligent, and engaging, and she does not shy away from tough topics. The book is full of intriguing characters you love to hate. Watching June Hayward's character arc is like watching a train wreck you can't look away from in the best way possible. I highly recommend this book (and all of R.F. Kuang's books).

R.F. Kuang. R.F. Kuang’s forthcoming latest, out May 16, tackles cultural appropriation in the publishing industry and beyond when author June Hayward steals a manuscript from the recently deceased Athena Liu, an Asian American writer and college friend of Hayward. “Kuang provides a sharp analysis of publishing’s blind spots and guides the plot toward a thrilling faceoff between June and Athena’s ‘ghost,’” read a starred Publishers Weekly review. “This is not to be missed.” In this vein, also see Mithu Sanyal’s “Identitti.” Translated by Alta L. Price, the life of blogger and doctoral student Nivedita (aka Identitti) is upended when she discovers her favorite and awe-inspiring South Asian professor, Saraswati, is white.

Wow, I didn't know what to expect going into this book. I've loved everything I've read by R.F. Kuang but contemporary fiction isn't my typical genre and I literally couldn't care less about publishing. I'm one of those readers who has never had any interest in writing a book or getting published. If this were written by almost anyone else I probably wouldn't have even bothered picking it up. But it's so much more than what I thought. There's definitely a bit of a thrilling aspect to this book and it was so interesting to just read about our MC slowly becoming more and more unhinged. There's obviously really great commentary within this book as well especially about race within publishing. It is extremely frustrating to read and know that even though it's a work of fiction, a lot of it probably isn't entirely off base. I'd highly recommend picking this one up, even if you're like me and don't always enjoy contemporary books. This was fantastic and I couldn't put it down.

This book had me screaming. I also think I figured out some references from past and current dramas in the book world. I loved everything about this book. I've got a copy on order for the bookmobile and I'm going to tell my coworkers to buy and READ this book. I'll also be purchasing my own personal copy. R F Kuang is an amazing writer!

I am a fan of Kuang's previous work, and knew I would be reading Yellowface as soon as it was announced. Kuang successfully tries on new genres and voices with each project, and I am eager to see what comes next. Yellowface is realistic fiction, in which failing writer June Hayward witnesses the death of her wildly successful frenemy and decides to steal her latest manuscript. And publish it as her own. With a new vaguely asian name and ambiguous author photo.
Though many are calling this a satire, there are frighteningly few exaggerations here. Kuang plays, masterfully, with the idea that some (white) people simply do not know when to stop.

Once again, as in Babel, R. F. Kuang demonstrates her prowess at writing terrible-but-intriguing characters. The satire about the publishing industry and Book Twitter is clearly self-referential and is not subtle, but it doesn't need to be; I cackled at many of June's ludicrous, racist inner thoughts--which I won't quote here, since the book isn't published, but which I did highlight in my eARC--and watching her eventual self-destruction felt like observing a horrific event from which I couldn't turn away. There's a mysterious cyberbullying thread that genuinely horrified me in a way that I didn't expect.

The ending feels lazy and lackluster compared to the rest of the book, unfortunately, but I tore through this in one day because I abandoned the other books I have to finish this week...so, that should tell you something about how compelling it is, depending on your interests.