A review by majolo57
The Souls of Yellow Folk by Wesley Yang

3.0

This book is a collection of a decade’s worth of essays from various venues. Not all of of them are addressed directly toward topics you might expect from the title. The essays are grouped thematically in four untitled sections. Their original publication dates range from 2008 to 2017, and the dizzying way that decade played out is probably responsible for the slightly off-balance sensation I had in reading the book. By halfway through, I picked up the habit of peeking at the end of each piece to know what year it was written, in hopes of being able to ground my reaction with some sense of how the topic (e.g., mass shooting, dating apps, etc.) would have been playing out in the public consciousness at the time. In all, the book did not feel coherent enough to be satisfying. I wonder if adding a conclusion to bookend the introduction might have helped me feel better able to put my reactions together and make sense of it all.