This book is worth the read. I feel like I got a clear lens into the author's view. It gave me more of an academic vibe but one I think would thrive in a college level course to review. It gives great insight and the harsh realities the author has been subjected to. Will purchase when the book comes out.

Thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the ARC!

Kaila Yu’s "Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty" is a memoir that silences readers with equal parts razor-sharp interrogation and gentle reflection.

Both scholarly and personal, the book situates Yu’s life experience as an import model and band leader within a culture that infantilizes and sexualizes Asian women. If you’re unfamiliar with import modeling like I was, it’s essentially where exoticized sexuality is used to sell foreign cars, an odd sort of Freudian correlation between sex and speed. Yu shines a light on the industry’s dark underbelly, and parts of the book are downright bleak, particularly because the dichotomy between sexual liberation and sexist possession can be so muddled.

At one point, Yu writes of a friend and bandmate: “For her, the line between empowerment and objectification blurred as our hemlines got shorter.”

This sort of nuance defines the book as a whole, but nowhere is it more striking than in how Yu refuses to frame herself as a passive victim. Instead, she recognizes that the truly insidious part of fetishization is how it encouraged her to perpetuate it. Every leering eye suggested the possibility of being seen. It’s the kind of self-critique possible only through deep self-love, and by acknowledging her own complicity, Yu is able to forgive herself and write a damning indictment of the male gaze—as if genuine accountability can only be reached when everyone is held accountable.

And she doesn’t pull any punches.

Yu name-drops several public figures who have had problematic relationships with Asian women. She isn’t afraid to draw attention to those who have escaped public ire because, well, we like their movies. The author writes so matter-of-factly that it’s refreshing, and there’s a kind of courage in how she refuses to be shocked or scandalized. Furthermore, when she points out the ubiquity of fetishization across movies and television, her bluntness makes it all the more horrifying—almost saying, "yeah, of course you haven’t noticed it, and that’s part of the problem."

Ultimately, this is Yu’s story, and while she excels at crafting her research into a conversation, I’m happy to say that her voice remains the loudest. When Yu addresses the aching loneliness of drug misuse or her inability to sustain a relationship, her grief is palpable but never nihilistic. When she describes her jealousy toward her bandmates, it doesn’t feel performative. When she admits that behind a keyboard, she prided herself that Asian women are “the best” because they are fetishized, it’s a heartbreaking revelation. This might be a story of a woman reclaiming her life and healing, but it's only possible through the author's mindful, heartfelt honesty and rich insight.

"Fetishized" is a book I’ll be thinking about for a long time, and I’m so grateful for Kaila Yu’s vulnerability. I think it will open discussions that no amount of analysis or statistics or moralizing can broach.

This is a 3.5 rounded up to a 4 for me. Kaila Yu's personal experiences help to illustrate many of her points around the fetishization of Asian women, but that critiques weren't new to me or particularly novel. The attitude she takes as she retells various stories show a wide range. At times, she comes across as regretful of past decisions or behaviors. In other cases, she seems defiant, as if expecting a challenge. She approaches parts of her story with a more academic lens as if she is trying to intellectualize her experience and feelings. Then she'll reflect on some other aspect as if she never had a chance and it was inevitable that things would turn out that way. I didn't expect consistency, but I was left wondering what informed her attitudes as she wrote about many of the significant events of her life. I wonder how consistent her feelings about, say, her modeling days really are. I wonder if she ever feels differently about her surgeries. I would like to know what led to her different perspectives as I doubt she simply woke up once day with knowledge about feminism and fetishization. What led her to being able to look back on her life thus far with this new lens?