Very very good. Only reason it's not a 5 stars is I found the ending relatively predictable. The voice in this steals the show - as someone who studied creative writing, I feel so exposed it was terrifying

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gandalf_a's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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marissasa's review against another edition

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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

3.5

This book is the definition of unlikable main character, to the point of being a horrible, racist, narcissist, entitled, crazy, dumpster fire of a character. The premise is interesting and hooked me because it genuinely could be something that happens in real life given the state of the traditional publishing industry and all the book twitter and booktok drama that happens nowadays. While it was fun to read along and cringe and gasp at how the narrator continuously gets herself into deeper and deeper shit, I do wish there was deeper social commentary and more objective points on how Athena wasn't a perfect person nor a good person at times. Since we only get to hear about her flaws through the biased eyes of the main character, some of the nuance about Athena being a very privileged, pretentious, rich kid with connections at the same time as being a well-loved talented author giving much needed representation in the industry is lost. I also don't think the book needed to be as long as it was, it did drag in some parts where the main character was trying to figure out to write next or was being paranoid. Overall, this felt like watching ugly drama that you can't look away from unfold so you end up staying for the whole thing with popcorn in hand.

Content Warnings

jenniferbowman's review against another edition

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dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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uncica's review against another edition

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dark funny 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

3.5

I wanted to love this book soooo much, especially because Kuang is an amazing writer.

It started off as a 5-star read - very unique and different - but I liked it less and less as the book progressed. I'm not sure if it was the book's fault, but I entered a massive reading slump, so I struggled to finish it over the course of a whole month, even though it was a fast-paced read.

What I liked:

I liked that the MC is straight up immoral in a sea of morally questionable characters. Her constant ability to find an "excuse" in order to "justify" plagiarizing her friend's work

(over and over again)

through blatant racism made Yellowface very thought-provoking. Kuang definitely made me reflect on my own biases.

Another intriguing aspect of the book is that it shows us how the writing and publishing process works on the back end, and just how competitive it can be.

Yellowface made me chuckle a couple of times, though the humor was mostly dark.

What I didn't like:

After a while, the book became repetitive, in my opinion, and I could pretty much predict what was going to happen next. That being said, I still don't know how I feel about the ending - don't love it, don't hate it. Since Kuang decided to go with

Athena's ghost

in order to expose Juniper, I almost wish she leaned fully into the narrative and made the book more

fantastical. (Note that I have a high preference for fantasy books, so I'm very much biased here.)

I just find the ending a bit anti-climactic given all the build-up.

Another thing that poked my eyes was that Kuang used the same quote about translation in Babel. Yes, the quote did fit in Yellowface, but I just did not like the recycling.

Otherwise, I do recommend you read Yellowface if only for Kuang's brilliant writing style.

Content Warnings

foresturken's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

basil_touche's review against another edition

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dark reflective 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

5.0

Such an engrossing read that's a biting satire on authors, racism in the publishing industry and the isolation of social media. This is fantastic example of an unreliable narrator that, while awful, feels like a she's a real person who's lack of acknowledgement of her white privilege and bigotry makes her dig herself deeper into her own pit. It becomes a trainwreck that you can't look away from.

The ending is going to stay with me, how it dawns on you as it reaches the end that

Juniper has doomed herself to an endless spiral of delusion, blaming everyone but herself. Trapped in isolation and irrelevancy.

It's sad in a way and feels very true to life (there were several online scandals of recent memory that this book reminded me of) but also doesn't beat around the bush that all of this is her fault. Not to mention that she really doesn't have talent and keeps plagiarising asian authors

(a part where she tries to come up with new pitch ideas only to realise that she's copied her asian high school students made me break down with laughter)

I do wish that we could have learned more about Athena, there was a lot about her family history that is mentioned briefly but I suppose that's part of the narrative; her voice was stolen from her, we'll never truly know her, mostly only how June saw her. There's so many layers to this book I'll be thinking about for quite some time. I will absolutely be checking out Kuang's other novels.

Content Warnings

ashively18's review against another edition

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challenging tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.25

I read this 6 months ago and I am just now able to post a review. I have gone back and forth as to whether or not I should. Ultimately, this was a personal experience and it shouldn’t sway someone from reading it if they want to, but I also feel like if I don’t just post my experience with it, that I will never move on. I would like to never think about this book again after this so here it goes.

To start, I know people love this book and that is amazing for them. It was not the book for me though. I have never in my life, had such an awful reading experience with a book, nor have I read something that legitimately infuriated me so badly that it has left a permanent negative mark on me. This book gave me massive anxiety.

There were numerous things about Yellowface that rubbed me the wrong way. The first, was the message telling authors to stay in their lane based off their ethnicity. Granted the main character was a POS that stole the works of her dead friend, but in any normal circumstances, I would never tell someone they couldn’t write about something that did the research for, because they didn’t live it. However, I am sure her pointing this out was intentional. My guess is that she has personally been told this multiple times, which influenced her decision to write this into Yellowface. The underlying message is likely an “F U” to trad publishing, which I mean I can definitely get on board with. I have heard it’s common to tell authors to “stay in their lane”. My issue is not with that message, it is that most folks are not all that intuitive, so the message at face value is discouraging and counterproductive to working towards equality of all in society, or publishing or whatever area of life.

The second, was that it directly points out the very real issues with today’s culture. Whether that is specific to publishing or in general is neither here nor there. I know that society is a shit show already, but I would rather not be faced with said shit show when I am reading to escape the struggles of living in this world. It does a fantastic job demonstrating how awful people are and how quick folks are to gather their pitchforks and torches. We have seen this so many times already “guilty until proven innocent” is the mentality of the masses and that is a dangerous place for anyone to find themselves facing.

Ultimately, I know what she was trying to do with this book and I think she achieved it. This whole book was a big giant negative sandwich. I am not a political person because of the negative connotations associated, so this was a definite mistake to read this and I should probably have researched it a bit more instead of going off my fave booktoker’s reviews, because I was certainly not the target audience. I truly hope the rest of this author’s works are much more of an enjoyable experience because I really would love to give her other titles a go.

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