Review by basil_touche - Yellowface

basil_touche 's review for:

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

5.0

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

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