Going into Yellowface, you cannot expect Babel. You have to set yourself up for a very very VERY different book than Babel. Babel was brilliant but definitely academic and a bit dense in spots. It was inspirational, heartbreaking, and it made you think.

Yellowface will make you think, it will challenge your views, it will anger you, and it will keep you on the edge of your seat. This is a thriller with some serious modern commentary on cultural appropriation, the publishing industry as a whole, cancel culture, and more topics that require such an intelligent and careful hand. R. F. Kuang is definitely up for the challenge.

From the first chapter of this book, you can tell this is going to be different from her other works. I read this one slowly over a month or so of eating breakfast, and I oftentimes found myself compelled to keep reading just to see “Juniper Song’s” downfall.

A thriller with weight that will be alllllllllll the rage and discussion of thoughtful book clubs in just a couple of days. Thank you to @netgalley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

This is the first book I’ve read by R.F. Kuang, though her other books are on my TBR.

From what I’m reading this is pretty different from her usual work. I’m definitely intrigued to pick up her other books.

It was very interesting to see more of the publishing side of things from someone who experiences it first hand. I can’t say I really liked any of the characters. I wasn’t really rooting for any of them. I’m not sure if that was the intent or not. I don’t use Twitter nor do I particularly care about Twitter ‘drama’ so that may have lost me a bit.

This was well written but just not my cup of tea.

Thanks to HarperCollinsCa for this advanced copy.

When June Hayward's "friend" Athena Liu dies unexpectedly, everything changes. June and Athena went to Yale together and both had high hopes of becoming literary stars. Only Athena achieves those goals and June's career is nothing more than a flop. June resents Athena's stardom, but still goes out with her when invited. A pancake eating contest gone wrong leaves June alone with Athena's final manuscript. She publishes it under the name Juniper Song, a deliberately ambiguous name that leads many readers to believe that June is Asian like Athena. It's the story of a spectacular rise to fame and the fallout from it. June starts seeing Athena's ghost and when she begins to get ominous messages from Athena's Instagram account, she wonders if she's lost all sense of reality. This book is an intellectual thriller. It kept me on the edge of my seat, though I wasn't rooting for anyone.

3.5/5 rounded up.


This was good... not great. I love R.F Kuang's writing. She is straightforward and almost academic at times, which adds to her style and elevates her themes. Where this gets in the way, is when she gets heavy handed. Her style just wasn't made for satire. Was this a great social commentary? Yes. Sometimes it screams a point you at the sake of the story making chapters clunky. June is an irredeemable, terrible person, and a great main character. Witnessing her manipulate and explain away her racism and plagiarism creates a thrilling tension and thoughtful commentary on the publishing industry. This book makes you think. When this book is great, it's great. When it screams a point at the sake of the plot, its not my style.

This book is SO GOOD. It's like the scandals over American Dirt, Bad Art Friend, and...whatever big plagiarism scandal you can think of combined into a thoroughly engrossing novel.

June Heyward is a writer but her only published novel has seen no success and she struggles to get by. Meanwhile, her former classmate and...friend? sort of?....Athena Liu is a literary wunderkind, her first novel reaching bestseller status when Liu is still in school.

When Athena suddenly dies and June finds herself in possession of the notes for Liu's work in progress, June sets out on a path that she will find hard to turn back from, even when confronted over and over with the ghostly truth.

There is so much in this novel that as a member of the book community I found fascinating, hilarious, and so on point. For example, June's publisher decides to publish the book under the name Juniper Song, because they don't want the world to know she's actually a white women writing about Chinese laborers during WWI. Or how Kuang so brilliantly describes the rhythms of booktok, whose righteous outrage while justified is met with a careless roll of the eyes by June and her bestseller friends.

I was so appalled at yet also fascinated by the main character - a most unlikeable person whose story we can't help but become engrossed in.

I haven't yet read Kuang's other work but I'll be doing so asap. Highly, highly recommended!

Yellowface is a propulsive, insightful look at the world of publishing. June Hayward and Athena Liu were college classmates and friendly with each other. Both become published authors, but Athena is much more successful than June. When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her manuscript and passes it off as her own. The novel examines racism in the publishing industry, what it means to be a successful writer, and plagiarism and theft of intellectual property, and the whole novel is very meta. I couldn't put it down!

Okay, this book made me angry. But like, wasn't that the point?
Yellowface is RF Kuang's debut literary fiction (but her writing transcends genres, truly. Even though this is not a fantasy book by any means, it was so well written.) about a white author who steals her dead friend's manuscript and publishes it as her own. It further goes on to discuss major themes such as racism in publishing, accountability, and white privilege. As an Asian reader, this book captivated me. Again, it made me HATE the main character and the things that they said, but it invoked some emotion in me that honestly, will have me thinking about this book for a long time. Absolutely banging job by RF Kuang and now I need to delve back into her backlist!

R. F Kuang has managed to craft a story that highlights the publishing industry's shortcomings, cancel culture, microaggressions against POC, internalized racism/prejudice and the entitlement of white people All of it told in the first person voice of a self-absorbed pusedo-liberal/feminist white woman, who has the audacity to frame her theft in a white saviour light.
This read had me cursing up a storm with the audacity of our FMC, although at certain points I did feel for her because of her fear of not succeeding and your ideas being dismissed when you have worked very hard on them.
Then ending I wished was different, it didn't satisfy my petty heart, but it was realistic and spoke to our society's short attention span and how we move on from controversial subjects quickly.

Overall, I think Kuang did an amazing job with this book! I did have high expectations for it, and while I don't know if I could say it surpassed those expectations, I do think it is a great novel and absolutely worth the read.

The most noteworthy element of this story is June's absolutely unwavering hypocrisy. She lacks such a ridiculous amount of insight into her thoughts, values, ideas, but Kuang managed to write her in a way that isn't cartoonish or caricatural. There are definitely people in the world who have said the exact same things that June does in this book, which made her that much more infuriating of a character.

There are so many instances in which she directly contradicts herself, and yet consistently convinces herself that she is right. At times she criticizes a woman for being misogynistic towards her, but then proceeds to be just as, if not more misogynistic towards other women, specifically Asian women who do not agree with her. She claims that some authors are cancelled for the "right reasons" such as using racial slurs, but cannot in any way shape or form recognize that her actions were so much worse. Her story flips flops non stop between "I never stole from Athena" to "This was a collaboration" to "It's okay if I took her work, so that it could get published and seen by the world" to "Yes I did steal her story, but it's fine because Athena stole from everyone too, myself included". And not once does she recognize how contradictory and hypocritical she is being all throughout the story. It was extremely effective and evocative as a novel.

I will say, although it is hard to compare books throughout different genres, I did miss Kuang's usual prose. This is a contemporary novel, and doesn't have quite as lyrical of a narrative voice. And while I understand that stylistic choice, one of the reasons The Poppy War is one of my favourite novels is specifically for the writing and how much it made me feel. I didn't have quite that same experience with Yellowface, and I don't think it necessarily set out to give me that, but I did feel like the story was dragging on and getting a little redundant at times.

Nonetheless, I absolutely, 100% do recommend this novel!

This was a fantastic fast read. I know Kuang from their other books, and this was a refreshing change of pace from their fantasy. It was an excellent book all about delusions and who has ownership and just amazing. Chef's kiss.

I was incredibly excited for Kuang's latest effort. Unfortunately, I feel the execution really fell flat here. I found this novel heavy-handed and lacking nuance, which would've made the critique stronger.

What a wild ride this was! Yellowface is such an incredible story and it kept me hooked from the very start until the last page. R.F. Kuang managed to write the main character June in such a way that I hated her, but still wanted to root for her deep down - she was absolutely insane, in such a good way. The way she rationalizes things is intense and it's so fun to see the thought process as things go through her head and she comes up with her crazy schemes and rationalizations. This books has so many layers - it feels like a fast paced thriller and contemporary book all in one go. I breezed through this book in one day and could NOT put it down. This is such a fun book but will exceptionally fun for those involved in the book review industry.

Yellowface is the first novel that I've read by author R. F. Kuang. Juniper and Athena are friendly from their college days. They still stay in touch intermittently and keep tabs on each other as they are both writers. So far, Athena is having more success than Juniper. That all changes one night when a sudden accident leaves Juniper with Athena's manuscript. From thereon out, decisions are made that will have life-changing ramifications. Read and enjoy!

Athena and June are both Yalie writers who attended college together but aren’t close per se. June has always been jealous of Athena’s natural effortless success in life, especially in the cutthroat writing industry when June’s debut novel was a massive flop. June resents Athena. One night when Athena and June are hanging out in Athena’s posh D.C. apartment, Athena chokes to death on a pancake and leaves behind a typewritten draft manuscript for her next book two years in the making. June takes the manuscript. Could this be June’s big break or the beginning of June’s downfall? What ensues is a high-speed rollercoaster of the highs and lows of the publishing industry in modern society.

Y’ALL I FLEW THROUGH THIS! I’ve NEVER binged a book in 24 hours because I’m just simply way too busy. If I had the time to have finished this in one sitting, I totally would have. It was so addictive and a page-turner for sure. I could not put it down. Such an interesting and creative con woman plot within the publishing industry.

4.5/5 stars

Thank you SOSO much to William Morrow, R.F. Kuang and NetGalley for the e-galley in exchange for an honest review!

Yikes! What a story! The narrator did a bad thing and keeping it a secret gave her panic attacks. Well, I experienced a virtual panic attack merely reading about the sordid “crime”. This was a nail biter for me. I just had to keep reading to find out what happened to the narrator so I could relax. Whew!

If you read one book this summer it should be this book! The depth and layers this book presented was just completely mind-blowing.

An honest and fair depiction of the publishing industry through the eyes of an author. This book is hilariously satirical due to Kuang's astute observations and her unwillingness to hold back criticisms of her own industry.

Everything I want to laud about this book is in the vein of spoilers and I honestly think it best to go into this knowing as little as possible about how the story unfolds. Just know that my first review was "Well shit this was amazing".

This was a wild ride of a book. You find yourself not wanting June to get caught, but also wanting her to get caught. I would start finding myself falling for June's justifications, but then you remember that she saw her "friend" die and stole her work. And every time she gets caught out there is another justification, well Athena stole her story, so isn't this fair?

I’ve given myself a couple days to fully digest 𝗬𝗘𝗟𝗟𝗢𝗪𝗙𝗔𝗖𝗘 by R.F. Kuang, but I’m still having trouble putting my thoughts into words. Let’s start with the fact that I really liked it and quite literally had a difficult time putting it down. The book centers on June Hayward, a struggling writer who steals the newly finished manuscript of her sometimes friend, Athena Liu, just after Athena dies at June’s feet. Now June has no guilt in Athena’s death, but her glee in making Athena’s manuscript her own leads to nothing but angst and rightfully so.⁣
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This is a book that has a lot to say about a lot of things. There’s a huge focus on the publishing industry and the ways it pushes authors, plus many the limits it places on authors of color. It touches on who can write what and how much background does one need to write a story outside of their own. Themes around racism, both overt and disguised, run throughout. Obviously, plagiarism and theft of intellectual property play a big role and it all comes together through June, her guilt, and her constant stream of excuses. ⁣
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While I truly enjoyed 𝘠𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦, there were times when I grew weary of June and her constant whining. Like in 𝘉𝘢𝘣𝘦𝘭, at times I felt Kuang was just a bit long winded and a bit repetitive. Otherwise, I thought it was a fun way to stir the pot on some important topics the publishing world continues to grapple with. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⁣
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Thanks to @williammorrowbooks for an electronic copy of #Yellowface.

Yellowface is a book unlike any other I've read before. This book deals with racism, cultural appropriation, the publishing industry, and the fetishization of Asian women.
Athena Liu is Aidan, beautiful, and successful. June Hayward has yet to really have success as a writer. She thinks about Athena a lot. It borders on the obsessive. One day, June witnesses Athena die and she steals her manuscript and published it herself. But, the manuscript deals with Chinese labor workers. So, she makes her photo more "ethnically ambiguous" and uses the name Juniper
Song.
She plays in the fact that she never outright says she Asian just leads people to think that she is. Through this we see the ramifications of what it really means when someone's culture is stolen.
This book was thrilling, suspenseful, hilarious, and utterly brilliant. The way R.F. Kuang deals with these topics and makes them come alive and pushes you to think. She really shows through the story and actions and words of these characters the messed things in publishing and in the debate of cultural appropriation. The writing is so clever, and so witty. I was gripped the entire time. I also felt really seen. The way Asian women are talked about, fetishized, made to be others is really shown. At my university I experienced a lot of racism and it was from places that you wouldn't expect.
This is an easy 5 star book. It's booth eye opening for a lot of people, plus is so freaking entertaining with so many twists you won't want to put it down. You'll also want to immediately binge all of her books!

Thank you to William Morrow Books for this advanced copy