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3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Holy whiteness. I went into Yellowface knowing it was supposed to be good, but I never actually looked at the summary, so I wasn’t prepared for how hard this would hit. I am shooketh. This book immediately made me think of American Dirt and its controversy, and of my own work in immigration law, where I’ve seen white women co-opt the stories of non-white folks to build their own careers. Kuang captures that dynamic so precisely that I felt like I was reading real life.
From a bird’s-eye view, the novel is about self-justification. June is the kind of “well-intentioned” white woman who swears she’s liberal and progressive, but when pressed, she gravitates toward conservative rhetoric and communities that validate her insecurities. The book becomes a chilling portrait of how entitlement, jealousy, and white woman tears can transform into power and protection. And that’s exactly why June feels so real to me — because I know women like her. I’ve seen the ways they evade accountability while demanding sympathy.
Spoilers below:
For me, this is a five-star read. Kuang knows exactly what she’s doing, and she nails it
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Yellowface is one of the most compulsively readable books I've ever read. I blazed through it in a couple of days, unable to put it down.
I do have mixed feelings about it, but it generated so much food for thought that I barely know where to begin.
My main criticism would be that I don't quite buy the MC as a real person. For the mostpart, she is the archetypal, ghoulish white racist, but then there would be glimmers of nuance thrown in. For a few paragraphs, she'd seem sympathetic or self aware, but then she'd revert back to being awful, and I'd be confused about how I was MEANT to be feeling.
You see, although Yellowface draws attention to racism in its many guises and disguises, shines a light on issues of cultural appropriation and brutally roasts the publishing industry, it also paints a claustrophobic and harrowing picture of cancel culture, online shaming, and the monsters that social media makes out of us.
From reading other reviews, I felt I should be unequivocally on one side of the argument, but the way I read it, Yellowface dug a lot deeper than just "aren't all these people awful?" I'm struggling to tell whether I'm distorting the narrative through my own lenses, or if the intention was to create a head-scrambling matrix of conflicting viewpoints, arguments, critiques, and perspectives. Kuang doesn't give us the answers, and that is why I felt Yellowface was such a clever, discussion-generating story.
I'm super-excited to read Kuang's other works. I've got Babel and The Poppy War waiting on my shelf. I'd also like to hear what Kuang has to say about Yellowface in interview. There's so much to unpack, and I'd be interested to know her own thoughts and feelings outside of and about Junie's frenzied diatribe of self-justification and the myriad insights her interactions brought up.
I do have mixed feelings about it, but it generated so much food for thought that I barely know where to begin.
My main criticism would be that I don't quite buy the MC as a real person. For the mostpart, she is the archetypal, ghoulish white racist, but then there would be glimmers of nuance thrown in. For a few paragraphs, she'd seem sympathetic or self aware, but then she'd revert back to being awful, and I'd be confused about how I was MEANT to be feeling.
You see, although Yellowface draws attention to racism in its many guises and disguises, shines a light on issues of cultural appropriation and brutally roasts the publishing industry, it also paints a claustrophobic and harrowing picture of cancel culture, online shaming, and the monsters that social media makes out of us.
From reading other reviews, I felt I should be unequivocally on one side of the argument, but the way I read it, Yellowface dug a lot deeper than just "aren't all these people awful?" I'm struggling to tell whether I'm distorting the narrative through my own lenses, or if the intention was to create a head-scrambling matrix of conflicting viewpoints, arguments, critiques, and perspectives. Kuang doesn't give us the answers, and that is why I felt Yellowface was such a clever, discussion-generating story.
I'm super-excited to read Kuang's other works. I've got Babel and The Poppy War waiting on my shelf. I'd also like to hear what Kuang has to say about Yellowface in interview. There's so much to unpack, and I'd be interested to know her own thoughts and feelings outside of and about Junie's frenzied diatribe of self-justification and the myriad insights her interactions brought up.
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The main character is so twisted an terrible. Kuang does such a good job creating realistic, hatable characters to tell a compelling story.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
funny
lighthearted
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
the first chapter had me sympathizing with junie, miss racially ambiguous juniper song, and then the rest just hit me in the face and i just could not stop fuming!!!
extremely painful but engaging read, super easy to speed through but at the same time every page caused me psychic damage. juniper was so close to having my sympathy at some points, which chances she immediately crushed two racist lines later. the twitter discourse-y parts were especially hard to get through because i closed twitter on my phone just to basically open it again on my kindle.. incredibly funny though
the language was a bit too personal to me, i felt like i was reading through some unserious persons private twitter account, but thats also what makes the book stand out from the rest so, alright, fine. the ending was a bit of an anticlimactic letdown, for someone who isn’t prone to change or self improvement junipers reaction was a huge switch from her usual meltdowns at every small inconvenience and pushback. and honestly, might just be me, but i was anticipating a big reveal that juniper failed to mention to us, that she did intentionally let athena choke to death. was i just reading between the lines too closely or just too dramahungry?? maybe the way it is now is the less predictable outcome, so its not a huge deal. i did like the reveal that athena actually was a bitch, confirmed by others, it made junies troubling actions and excuses even more complicated.
all in all an entertaining read!
extremely painful but engaging read, super easy to speed through but at the same time every page caused me psychic damage. juniper was so close to having my sympathy at some points, which chances she immediately crushed two racist lines later. the twitter discourse-y parts were especially hard to get through because i closed twitter on my phone just to basically open it again on my kindle.. incredibly funny though
the language was a bit too personal to me, i felt like i was reading through some unserious persons private twitter account, but thats also what makes the book stand out from the rest so, alright, fine.
all in all an entertaining read!
challenging
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is a relatively good book, certainly one that kept me very engaged and willing to read throughout. However, it’s pretty weak in comparison to the other book from Kuang that I recently read, Babel.
Both characters are quite flawed, as well as large parts of the industry, as shown in this particular novel, so basically everything was pretty unlikeable. I know this is done on purpose and for that I say a job well done, but it just made the book less of something I genuinely enjoyed, and more like a brief interest that I wanted to get to the bottom of.
Both characters are quite flawed, as well as large parts of the industry, as shown in this particular novel, so basically everything was pretty unlikeable. I know this is done on purpose and for that I say a job well done, but it just made the book less of something I genuinely enjoyed, and more like a brief interest that I wanted to get to the bottom of.
I character that makes you dislike them does not make a bad book. Making the reader feel feelings, positive or negative, is good writing. This is good writing.