The entirety of the book I felt so weird. It's an unreliable narrator who is trying to make it in the publishing world. It grabbed me and I couldn't stop listening to it. It was a car crash in slow motion, where you see exactly where the car is going to flip but you cant do anything but watch it flip over and over and over again. It has a haunting feel to it. It's not what I was expecting to read, I have only read the first Poppy War book and loved it but didn't continue bc well life, but I'm gonna have to read RFK's other works. Yellowface has you seeing how crazy the publishing field is, and all done from a pretty popular author... Makes me wonder who pissed her off. But on the other hand, impressed that she wrote about it in the first place. The characters are done so well, main character will never take the blame always finding a way to manipulate the story to make herself look good. Super morally gray.

RF Kuang is quite literally brilliant. This was amazing. The main character was infuriating which made me love RF Kuang writing even more.

Thank you to the publisher, HCC Frenzy, and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

June Hayward and Athena Liu both graduated from Yale and had their debut novels published in the same year. Where Athena soon became the industry’s darling and an acclaimed author, June’s novel was barely noticed. When Athena dies in a freak accident and June is the only witness, she steals Athena’s newest novel on impulse, finishes writing it, and presents it to her agent as her own work. Except, book is about the contributions of Chinese laborers during WWI, and June is white, so she agrees to be published under the name Juniper Song to present a more ambiguous perspective of her ethnicity. And the book is a huge success, with sales through the roof, making the bestseller list and nominated for awards. But someone out there knows her secret and threatens to ruin everything. Athena’s ghost continues to hang over her and June scrambles to guard her secret. How far will she go to protect her ill-gotten fame and success?

I’d actually been considering whether to add this book to my TBR or not for several months. It’s a contemporary novel which is far from my favorite genre and I generally don’t tend to have a good reading experience with these books. But having read Babel last year (which I absolutely loved), I was far too curious about this new book from R. F. Kuang to skip it despite being a bit nervous. Not to mention, the blurb is so intriguing and I just had to know how this story would turn out.

Within the first couple of chapters, I knew this book was going to be worth the read. It offered an intriguing look into not only the publishing industry and how the process works, but also social media and its impact on it and the bookish community. It took these concepts and intertwined it with the tense mood of a thriller and it had me at the edge of my seat throughout, eager to know what would happen next.

Yellowface touches on a lot of important topics such as racism in the publishing industry, ongoing trends, social media scandals relating to authors and reviewers and how vicious the related backlash can be and more. The behind-the-scenes glimpse of the publishing industry were what I found most interesting as I didn’t really know much is involved between an author writing a book and getting it on shelves.

This book was very fast-paced and easy to read. In fact, the narrative was so addictive a read that it is easily binge reading material – I nearly missed my stop on the train because I was so caught up in it. The writing was marvellous of course and I liked how the author launched straight into the plot without delay, allowing the characters’ background to unfold more gradually throughout the book.

While I wouldn’t say June was a likeable character exactly or even remotely a protagonist, this book was written in such a way that you can’t look away as she makes decision after bad decision, justifying each one to herself in some twisted way, and you just need to know how it will end, if she’s really going to get away with it. She was a realistically written character however, and her actions and reactions were entirely believable if more and more morally questionable as the book goes on.

So I’d kind of guessed who was behind the mysterious and threatening messages June was getting by the last 10-15%, there weren’t really many possible suspects by that point. But I loved the way those final chapters played out and especially the note the book concluded on. It left the ending a little open on what the future might hold for June despite everything that happened and for once, I’m not even annoyed about the ambiguity of it.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I can’t remember the last time I said that about a contemporary novel. While I wouldn’t say it’s one of my favorites, Yellowface is definitely a novel that I’ll remember for a long time. I would highly recommend this book to all readers, it’s certainly a novel that would fit a wide range of reading tastes.

It seems safe to say that R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface is like no other book you’ll read this spring. Possibly in the whole of 2023 entirely. It’s addictive, shocking, compelling, ridiculous, and extremely fun to read by turns. It wrestles with hot-button topics in publishing surrounding race, classism, white privilege, and tokenism. And its unlikeable lead characters will not only leave you wondering who—if anyone—we’re meant to be rooting for, but how potentially complicit we are in upholding publishing’s worse tendencies by reading a book called Yellowface in the first place. What I’m saying is, this book is a whole lot, and whether or not it is a book for you is probably going to have to be adjudicated on a case-by-case basis.

That Yellowface will inevitably be one of the spring’s buzziest and most controversial novels seems like a foregone conclusion. In many ways, that reaction will be deserved: The book is almost compulsively readable, and its plot is fast-paced and relentless. You’ll find yourself promising just one more page the same way you always mean to spend just one more minute scrolling through your Instagram reels or Twitter feed. There’s an element of voyeurism here that’s hard to resist—the vibe is very “yes, finally, someone’s telling it how it is about the way publishing really works!”—-and, admittedly, it’s always kind of fun to watch an unlikeable character like Juniper exploit an unfair system for her own gain and be so unapologetic about it. But despite its necessary and all too true themes, there’s also an uncomfortable, overly meta feel to this book—-if you’re part of the online world of publishing, be it Book Twitter, BookTok, or Instagram influencer programs, a lot of this story will feel painfully familiar to you.

This is an expertly crafted book about ambition, cultural appropriation, and the dark underbelly of the publishing industry. Told from the perspective of an unreliable and purposefully unlikable narrator, Kuang plays with readers' perception of the truth and right vs wrong. I loved that this toed the line between contemporary fiction and suspenseful mystery and the slow-burn style of the mystery. Kuang is a master of her craft in any genre and this book was no different.

The hyper-specific niche that I love is a story about a conperson. Yellowface checks that box for me.

There is so much hype about this book that all I feel like I can say is that the hype is right!

Witnessing the though process of the main character and the way she gas lights herself through out the whole book is so hard to watch but makes you keep coming for more.

I received an Advanced Reader Copy via NetGalley to review, so thank you to them and the publisher. My review is honest and not biased because I got an ARC. I received it prior to the book’s publishing but I finished it and am writing this after the release date.
This is my first time reading R. F. Kuang and what an outing it was! Keep in mind, the target is not white people, the target is white supremacy and appropriation. This book is the definition of white people doing white people crap. The obvious theme of this book is cultural appropriation and white people taking ideas, things, etc. from minority groups, claiming it as their own, and profiting off of it. And if you didn’t already know, this book is about June (a white woman author) taking her dead colleague, Athena’s, (a Chinese American woman author) story and publishing it as her own. As you can imagine, this spirals out of control!
The story is told in June’s perspective and throughout the book, we only get her rationale, her feelings, and her perspective of what unfolds. I love this choice by Kuang because immediately, we have an unreliable narrator. Just how bad of a person was Athena really? As a Chinese American, like Athena, this story hit hard. June’s arguments and reasonings are one I’ve heard a lot. I’ve never been so mad while reading a book (in the best way). That being said, if you agree with some of the things June and her colleagues say, you may want to do some inward reflection and consider why that is. Some instances, they’re just outright racist. But a lot of the time, the racism is subtle, it doesn’t feel so bad. But those microaggressions add up. June doesn’t show her true self right at the beginning, it slowly then all at once shows itself. There are other characters that have questionable views, but I appreciated a scene where a person wanted to speak up and call out the microaggressions being said, but they chose not to. This is a thing that I’m all too familiar with. A lot of times, microaggressions happen so fast that I don’t have time to process that I was being insulted. It helps to have allies who are not afraid to speak up against racism.
The ending was neither good nor bad. I wish it was something different but I think what the ending is saying is that racism is a cycle that keeps going until someone puts a stop to it. Her final descent gives an inkling of the Netflix show “BEEF” because she gets so lost in her anger and she just spirals.
In the end, I really liked this book, no book has made me feel anger (again, in the best way). This book asks the question “can white people write characters of color?” It’s a great discussion question that isn’t straightforward, even though this book says “no they cannot.” Obviously don’t steal and plagiarize, but I think the answer, if there is one, is more nuanced. I had a white professor in undergrad who lived in China for 10+ years and has a doctorate in Asian Studies. If I’m being frank, they’re way more qualified to write a historical fiction on Chinese laborers in World War I than I’d ever be. However, nothing beats a primary source and a POC writing their own story. I do think white authors should have diverse characters in their stories because our world is diverse. In which case, I would want them to do research, avoid stereotypes, and talk with POC on how to represent them. I might be rambling, I was adopted and raised by a white family in the U.S. I’m very Americanized with hardly any ties to my heritage. That’s the foundation I’m working with and I’m working to unlearn the conscious and unconscious biases I have. This book has given me a lot to think about, even though I understand (and lived through) some of these situations. Kuang has written an informative novel, one that shows white supremacy and white women’s role in it, cultural appropriation, and an inside look at the publishing industry (and its racism).

‘Yellowface’ is a satirical literary thriller that points its finger directly at the white mediocrity dominating the bestseller lists.

The fear of being unsuccessful in a gruelling industry is what gives this book momentum. Enter June Hayword, a 27-year-old Yale alma mater who turns this fear into a one-person pity party following the flop of her debut novel. The fear of inadequacy morphs into hatred which she directs at her supposed best friend, multi-award-winning bestselling author Athena Liu. Athena chokes to death on a pancake (yes, you read that right) the night they are celebrating her new Netflix deal, creating the perfect opportunity for June to steal her latest manuscript. She whitewashes the Chinese labour war epic and publishes it under the new and conveniently racially ambiguous moniker ‘June Song’.

This was a new voice for RF Kuang to tap into and it completely sucked me in from the first chapter. June Hayword is brazen in her brattiness, entitlement and self-serving logic. Reading her inner monologue was incredibly frustrating but equally captivating. Right when I thought she couldn’t delude herself any further, her echo chamber encourages her to new lows.

What I especially loved is how my understanding of June and Athena morphed over the course of the novel. Their friendship spans nearly a decade and is laced with moments of vulnerability and jealousy. Each played the villain in the others’ story which added a layer of complexity to the central question: “Who get to tell what stories and when does storytelling become theft?”

We’ve seen the discussion of who is allowed to tell diverse stories play out online so many times, most notably with ‘American Dirt’ and many Taylor-Jenkins Reid titles. ‘Yellowface’ doesn’t offer solutions, it aims to highlight important issues surrounding this discussion like the role of social media, upholding diversity initiatives, marketing budgets devoted to preordained bestsellers, and the fight for mandatory sensitivity reads.

The current publishing landscape enables the big 5 to absorb critique of itself to improve the bottom line without having to enact meaningful change. ‘Yellowface’ is both a rendering of how bad things are from the inside and a rallying cry to those operating in these systems to keep fighting for change.

June Hayward and Athena Liu both embarked on promising literary careers at the same time, but Athena’s books became bestsellers while June’s grew dusty on the shelf. When Athena passes away unexpectedly, June steals her final manuscript and presents it to her editor as her own, telling herself the story deserves to be published. But when June rebrands herself as Juniper Song, the book becomes massively popular, and the truth threatens to come out, her newfound success spirals out of control.

What a wild ride! R.F. Kuang strikes the perfect balance of dark humor, twists and turns, and commentary on the publishing industry. So many smart and evocative choices were made. This is the kind of book you finish and immediately want to talk to someone about. It's fully deserving of all the buzz it's generated.

I absolutely loved R. F. Kuang's last book, Babel, and I was thrilled to get my hands on her latest book.
On the surface, it seemed like this book had such a strikingly different premise than her other books. It is, but in the ways that matter, it is not. It was absolutely captivating from the moment I picked it up. Even when I had to put the book down, I was still thinking about it, which was the same way I devoured her other books.
Yellowface is a satire about the prevalent racism in the publishing industry that had me cringing and laughing aloud. I hope everyone picks this book up, and I will be recommending it to literally everyone! This is an important, must read!

June Hayward holds the first draft of a brilliant manuscript in her hands, one she knows will be a huge hit. The only problem is that she didn’t write it. Her friend Athena painstakingly typed it up on her typewriter before falling dead in a freak accident right in front of June. Snagging it on her way out the door, June convinces herself she doesn’t want Athena’s brilliance to go to waste. She edits the manuscript and submits it to her publisher under her own name.
It’s a masterpiece; she receives a huge advance, critical acclaim and world renown. Then the accusations begin-her pseudonym ‘Juniper Song’ sounds asian, but isn’t she white? Her debut novel flopped, could she really have written this? As Athena’s ghost metaphorically (possibly literally) continues to haunt June, her life threatens to unravel around her.

I can’t quite decide if I liked this book or not. There were portions I enjoyed and portions I did not. The narrator is not very likable which is a device that can be difficult to execute well. It made it hard to connect with her or care too much about what happened to her.
I did appreciate the metaness of the parts about writing and publishing a book. Sometimes it felt like that author was talking directly to me about the process of writing a book. I think there are some interesting questions explored here; what is the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way to talk (or write) about race? Does someone have the right to examine or analyze a group that they are not part of? Overall it was an interesting read but unfortunately not a favorite of mine.

Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the advance copy of this book.

Wow this was a book I found myself binge reading and basically read in a day. It’s also an interesting read bc you can’t help but wonder how much of the character of Athena Liu is based on the author. Is this how the author sees herself or is this how she thinks others see her?

It was fascinating reading about the inner workings of the publishing industry from the viewpoint of a best selling author. And of course the discussions about racism and cultural appropriation. So much of this book rings true as it’s something we’ve seen in publishing many times before. The conversation about own voices and who has the right to best tell the stories of marginalized people. That often even within those marginalized groups we often favor books written by people from privileged backgrounds

I definitely recommend this one. It’s not my favorite from this author and yet it’s another book where I think she exposes ugly truths in a way that rings true.

Overall very well written and gripping book. You really bought into the storyline and The protaganist is very frustrating. Great informative insight into the publishing world and how easily white washing can occur. Only negative is that I wouldn't really call it a thriller..

This book was amazing! The storyline was perfect and Kuang was fearless in her storytelling. Definitely recommend.

A blistering critique of the publishing world, this breakneck satire is compulsively readable and so addictive it feels like a crime. It’s sharp, no-holds-barred, and sparks conversations that can only get more and more important.

RF Kuang has such a distinctive voice that really shines in ‘Yellowface’. In its way, it’s an exposé on the publishing industry and its bad business, racism, and misogyny, to name a few.

In a way, I feel like I’ve read this before because it’s so obviously based on actual publishing issues, Twitter and Goodreads drama, reviewer spaces, etc. Writing from the point of view of the “bad guy” was a great decision from Kuang, it starts and slowly builds into something that made me feel a little bit insane as I was reading. There’s an almost Hitchcock feel. Obviously this whole situation was nuts! But June’s character is written so well, it almost makes you forget she’s the villain. Which of course is the point and it’s excellently done. Groupthink and manipulation, especially through social media, happens so easily.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow publishing for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Reads like a thriller and confronts issues like whether anyone has more of a right to tell a given story than anyone else, why we allow the rampant ebb and flow of social media to wield the power it does, and where humanity fits in chewing up and spitting people out. Excellent.

Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who 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 during World War I.

This was the first of Kuang’s books that I've read and now I’m chomping at the bit to read more. The story itself is exciting and interesting, and the characters were extremely well-written. I loved that I didn't like June, but I didn't want to put down the book (I've found that sometimes when a protagonist is incredibly unlikable, they can be hard to read). I can see why this book is getting the acclaim that it is, it's well deserved. There was a point in time when I wanted to work in publishing, so it was extra interesting to see into the publishing world. I really loved this book and am excited to read more of Kuang's work. Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for this ARC!

I have never in my life encountered a character with more satirical unhinged audacity and a complete lack of both self and cultural awareness, than Juniper Song.

This book follows June Hayward, a struggling author, who is perpetually jealous of her close friend, Athena Liu, a bestselling writer. When Athena dies, June seizes the opportunity to publish Athena’s last novel on the ‘unsung contributions of Chinese labourers during World War I’ under her own name… Well, her new name, the racially ambiguous ‘Juniper Song’.
What follows is discourse on who can write about cultural experiences that aren’t theirs, the viciousness of the court of public opinion, morality in the face of losing everything, the systemic flaws in the publishing industry and, internal to Juniper… delusional white entitlement that knows no bounds.

June has convinced herself that her years of bad karma in the publishing industry, subtle belittlement at the hands of her friend Athena, and her hard work editing Athena’s novel, have entitled her to her actions (and spared her from the consequences).

Interestingly enough, despite the countless moments where I was wincing and flinching and recoiling from the abhorrent behaviours in this book, the most shocking part was that it wasn’t shocking at all. If you’re white and you read this and can’t see yourself in it even a little… you’re not looking hard enough. This book is a magnifying glass held up to western society, to the publishing industry, and to the very real (and not always subtle) culture of oppression and indignity that Asian communities continue to experience.

This book caused visceral reactions in me, yes, but more importantly, it caused a lot of pause and introspection. I highly recommend it, I’ve never read anything like it. Thank you for the ARC, Harper Collins 💛