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3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
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
adventurous
funny
mysterious
fast-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
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Mad creatives tearing each other down is my new favourite genre. Manages to be a thriller and a mystery and a comedy and a biting social satire - great fun overall. This is contemporary lit and I love it.
dark
emotional
funny
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
god, this was fucking stellar. rf kuang said this book would be ridiculous and absurd—and she delivered exactly that. this was an insanely hilarious, page-gripping read. i enjoyed this a little too much.
this is the first novel i've completed of hers, but i've been exposed to her writing before (i read about 55% of the poppy war but haven't had the chance to complete it yet...definitely will soon though, now that fall is coming up). without a doubt, rf kuang is an exceptional writer. her way with words is actually mind-blowing. going into this, i knew her writing would not be something i'd have an issue with. in fact, there's not a single thing i disliked.
i gained a lot of insight on the book publishing process. from drafting manuscripts to querying literary agents to sending books to editors and publishers—it was so fascinating to read.
what's more riveting is how the novel tackles numerous issues within the publishing industry—providing thoughtful commentary on racism, plagiarism, cultural appropriation, cancel culture, performative diversity, and more. the industry, like many others, is absolutely sickening. i found the twitter discourse and jabs at those who hop on hate trains accurate—it's unfortunate how relevant that is in our current day, especially now that cyberbullying has been more normalized than ever.
also, i know june is supposed to be an insufferable character (and trust me, she was), but a part of me wanted to root for her...she was just so determined and delusional, i wanted to applaud her for all the efforts she put into trying not to get caught LOL. girl was crazy but she was putting in the WORK. her spiraling thoughts were definitely disturbing, but i also found them HILARIOUS. i was thoroughly entertained. i can't say i'm surprised by the ending, but i absolutely loved it.
rf kuang, you are amazing. this was perfect.
fast-paced
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Yellowface is the kind of book where I wish I could have had a book club discussion afterwards. There were many topics I wish this book had gone deeper on, and I also think this book brings up topics that would be interesting to discuss with others: cultural appropriation, performative diversity, identity, and racism in the publishing industry.
As for the FMC, June… I have never been so irritated with a main character before, wishing that they would shut up, and yet I kept reading hoping it would get better. The FMC is an unreliable narrator who is so delirious and wrapped up in her own lies — it got to the point where I was annoyed reading because of how she kept playing the victim. I wanted to like June but she definitely made it hard to.
I’m not sure what I was hoping the perfect resolution would be. I also did not know going into this book that there were going to be thriller-ish vibes at times. I think because this was my first immersive read, I did find myself being anxious at times reading about her anxiety spirals (maybe the immersion was a little too immersive in those moments for me 😅).
Overall, it was a quick read with a decent flow and Kuang’s writing obviously kept me reading, but there was no resolution for the main character or the reader.
As for the FMC, June… I have never been so irritated with a main character before, wishing that they would shut up, and yet I kept reading hoping it would get better. The FMC is an unreliable narrator who is so delirious and wrapped up in her own lies — it got to the point where I was annoyed reading because of how she kept playing the victim. I wanted to like June but she definitely made it hard to.
I’m not sure what I was hoping the perfect resolution would be. I also did not know going into this book that there were going to be thriller-ish vibes at times. I think because this was my first immersive read, I did find myself being anxious at times reading about her anxiety spirals (maybe the immersion was a little too immersive in those moments for me 😅).
Overall, it was a quick read with a decent flow and Kuang’s writing obviously kept me reading, but there was no resolution for the main character or the reader.
dark
mysterious
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
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
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
this is my first book i've finished since getting back into reading, and WOW. i was not expecting that twist at all. truly i kept reading just to see how much more i could hate the characters in this book. it just barely missed 4 stars for me because it didn't keep me hooked the entire time. i took a large break in the middle of the book because at some point, i just couldn't stand seeing the main character somehow slither her way into another narrative win for herself. this book is a perfect embodiment of that meme "the whites are at it again!". loved kuang's writing throughout and will definitely read her other works.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Medical content, Medical trauma, Cultural appropriation, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Body horror, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Sexual assault, Violence, Stalking, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail
challenging
dark
informative
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
Overall Rating: 5/5
Yellowface is marketed as “chilling and hilariously cutting.” While “hilarious” is not a word I would use to describe it, I am chilled and cut to the bone by Kuang’s sharp prose and critique of the American publishing system, racism, especially toward Asian Americans, cancel culture, and social media toxicity. It was brilliant, though I must wonder at Kuang’s general psychological state. She writes unlikable, toxic characters so well.
What I Liked
- The critiques: Kuang delivers in her usual blunt-force, direct tone. While her prose is decidedly different than The Poppy War or Babel, she still aims each blow carefully and executes it precisely.
”Publishing picks a winner—someone attractive enough, someone cool and young and, oh, we’re all thinking it, let’s just say it, “diverse” enough—and lavishes all its money and resources on them.”
- Unreliable and unlikable narrator: You’re not supposed to like June or Athena. Kuang excels at writing unlikable characters, and yet somehow causes the reader to empathize or at least understand the nature of their toxic actions. Plucked from the context, June’s actions are horrific and unethical, but within the story? Well, they make perfect sense for her character, ambitions, dreams, and fears.
“I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING. THIEF. PLAGIARIZER. AND PERHAPS, because all bad things must be racially motivated, Racist.”
What I Didn’t Like
- Author’s autobiography: Kuang might deny it (or not), but there is a sense that she is writing from her own publishing experiences, the critiques leveraged against her following The Poppy War and Babel, and her experiences as a minority Asian American woman. In some ways, I didn’t mind; it offers her perspective wrought from real-life experiences. In other ways, it felt shrill, like a streetside preacher who uses his soapbox and megaphone to loudly proclaim his hellfire message so that the passersby really can’t miss it, or if they do, they are doomed to hell.
Themes and Reflections
- Racism and microaggressions: The book’s full of them. June’s name is changed to sound more Asian. Her author photo is doctored ever so slightly to show her more tanned than she is. Her pompous white woman supremacy rings clear as she seeks to maintain her status and power by any means possible.
“I sometimes wonder how my work would be received if I pretended to be a man, or a white woman. The text could be exactly the same, but one might be a critical bomb and the other a resounding success. Why is that?”
- Critique of the publishing industry: Publishers buy what sells. It’s a money game at its core, which is all the more tragic because writers are artists, not manufacturers. Kuang is blunt about what sells right now—diversity. The more non-white, the better. And then she captures the white narrator’s frustration with this pigeonholing just as well as the painstaking efforts of minority writers seeking publication in diverse genres.
“And I wonder if that’s the final, obscure part of how publishing works: if the books that become big do so because at some point everyone decided, for no good reason at all, that this would be the title of the moment.”
- Plagiarism: Ideas are the property of their creator, as well as the texts and images that accompany them. Protection of creative rights is an important topic in a highly digital and cyberspace age. The topic is dealt with satirically, so much so that the reader is left scoffing at bits where plagiarism is accused. Surely, on those grounds, nothingoriginal or creative would ever exist because we all copy ideas and stories from one another. What about the myriad fairytale retellings or Jane Austen adaptations in modern literature? Thus, the question is posed: What constitutes plagiarism?
I’d seen Athena steal before. She probably didn’t even think of it as theft. The way she described it, this process wasn’t exploitative, but something mythical and profound.
- The dumpster fire that is Twitter and social media: Writers rely heavily on social media to promote their work. Kuang exposes the dark trap that it is; it makes no one happy and results in perpetual cycles of greedy gossip and slander.
“Such is the nature of a Twitter dustup. Allegations get flung left and right, everyone’s reputations are torn down, and when the dust clears, everything remains exactly as it was.”
Writing Style
Fast-paced, sharp, and cutting, Kuang delivers an entirely different genre than her previous works, but with just as much force and directness as seen previously. Certainly, a critique might be made that Kuang inserts herself into the narrative. It’s difficult not to see the parallels between Athena Liu’s work in narrative Chinese history and Kuang’s own in The Poppy War, especially as Athena is critiqued as writing on behalf of the Chinese diaspora while holding only loosely to her own Chinese heritage. I’ve read the very same critique of Kuang on Goodreads (ahem, plagiarism??), and Yellowface obliquely manages these criticisms.
Tropes
- Price of fame
- Stolen identity
- White savior
- Unreliable narrator
- Descent into madness
Content Warnings
General Rating: Adult (18A / R / TV-MA)
- Spice Rating: Moderate—descriptions of non-consensual rape
- Violence Rating: Severe—bullying, racism, cultural microaggressions, sexual harassment, cyberbullying and harassment
- Profanity Rating: Severe—90 uses of f*ck
- Other Trigger Warnings: racial slurs, suicidal thoughts, death of parent, multigenerational trauma
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Cursing, Racial slurs, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment
Trigger warnings: racism and racial slurs.
Profanity: 90 occurrences of f*ck