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A review by milaniezh
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
4.0
Never in my life, I’ve written a review bigger than two sentences, but “Yellowface” was one of the most thought-provoking things I’ve ever read.
The story is about unpopular writer June Hayward, who stole and appropriated her recently passed friend’s unpublished manuscript.
Juniper doesn’t stop. She always wants more readers, more great ideas, and she didn’t stop justifying herself,
“I know what you’re thinking. Thief. Plagiariser. And perhaps, because all bad things must be racially motivated, Racist. Hear me out. It’s not so awful as it sounds.”
She doesn’t recognize that behavior with the possibility of being called “revenge”, doesn’t exclude the fact of being unacceptable. However, every time she receives death-wish messages you terrified. This isn’t a sympathetic character, but you still can feel sorry for her.
During the story we finding out not only about main character, but also about Athena, who’s manuscript, actually, was stolen. Athena is a golden girl: she’s smart, pretty and charming, so why from all people, exactly June friend-from-freshman-year was here while she dying? At the end, you may see a lot of parallels in them.
SPOILERS!
I was really moved and impressed with one part of Mrs. Liu and June’s call dialogue:
““It [Mother Witch] really is original work”…
“I know,” says Mrs. Liu, and now there’s a hard edge in her voice. “I know, June. Athena never would have written something like that.”
Before I can ask her what she means, she hangs up.”
What do we know about June’s family? –Her mother loves her daughters but thinks that for Junie being an accounted better than being an author. Her sister lives her life with an average middle class family and doesn’t understand the importance of sister’s achievements. But also we have a father who’s died and mentioned in text maybe three times, but has the biggest significance for June.
Athena’s mother as well as our main character’s mother doesn’t read her daughter’s works, but one of them doesn’t – because scared of fact seeing her parenting from children’s view, and one – simply doesn’t care.
““…nobody believed me. They said that the Chinese were not in World War One”… “Thank you for telling this story.”” One more beautiful and moving scene.
Can white authors write about racism from perspective of asian mans? This book doesn’t have an easy answer. Is it bad? - I don’t know, I think it’s something that everyone need to answer himself.
“Geoff is one of the few people on earth who also understand the unique point of trying to love Athena Liu. The futility of it all. Like Echo looking Narcissus. Like Icarus hurtling straight at the sun, just to feel it’s warmth on his skin”.
I noticed that paragraph while searching for quotes, and let me say how accurate these myths selected. June is unable to makes good stories without stolen others ideas as well as Echo was forced to use the voices of others to speak. And after all they both ends only as someone’s echo.
Conclusion
Saw the review where someone tells that feel as their thoughts on such a masterpiece not worthy of being put on paper, and I agree with that. Absolutely. Thanks to Rebecca Kuang for such a great reading and I hope my bad-english-writing was not such awful.
The story is about unpopular writer June Hayward, who stole and appropriated her recently passed friend’s unpublished manuscript.
Juniper doesn’t stop. She always wants more readers, more great ideas, and she didn’t stop justifying herself,
“I know what you’re thinking. Thief. Plagiariser. And perhaps, because all bad things must be racially motivated, Racist. Hear me out. It’s not so awful as it sounds.”
She doesn’t recognize that behavior with the possibility of being called “revenge”, doesn’t exclude the fact of being unacceptable. However, every time she receives death-wish messages you terrified. This isn’t a sympathetic character, but you still can feel sorry for her.
During the story we finding out not only about main character, but also about Athena, who’s manuscript, actually, was stolen. Athena is a golden girl: she’s smart, pretty and charming, so why from all people, exactly June friend-from-freshman-year was here while she dying? At the end, you may see a lot of parallels in them.
SPOILERS!
I was really moved and impressed with one part of Mrs. Liu and June’s call dialogue:
““It [Mother Witch] really is original work”…
“I know,” says Mrs. Liu, and now there’s a hard edge in her voice. “I know, June. Athena never would have written something like that.”
Before I can ask her what she means, she hangs up.”
What do we know about June’s family? –Her mother loves her daughters but thinks that for Junie being an accounted better than being an author. Her sister lives her life with an average middle class family and doesn’t understand the importance of sister’s achievements. But also we have a father who’s died and mentioned in text maybe three times, but has the biggest significance for June.
Athena’s mother as well as our main character’s mother doesn’t read her daughter’s works, but one of them doesn’t – because scared of fact seeing her parenting from children’s view, and one – simply doesn’t care.
““…nobody believed me. They said that the Chinese were not in World War One”… “Thank you for telling this story.”” One more beautiful and moving scene.
Can white authors write about racism from perspective of asian mans? This book doesn’t have an easy answer. Is it bad? - I don’t know, I think it’s something that everyone need to answer himself.
“Geoff is one of the few people on earth who also understand the unique point of trying to love Athena Liu. The futility of it all. Like Echo looking Narcissus. Like Icarus hurtling straight at the sun, just to feel it’s warmth on his skin”.
I noticed that paragraph while searching for quotes, and let me say how accurate these myths selected. June is unable to makes good stories without stolen others ideas as well as Echo was forced to use the voices of others to speak. And after all they both ends only as someone’s echo.
Conclusion
Saw the review where someone tells that feel as their thoughts on such a masterpiece not worthy of being put on paper, and I agree with that. Absolutely. Thanks to Rebecca Kuang for such a great reading and I hope my bad-english-writing was not such awful.