A review by cepbreed
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

dark emotional tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I love an unreliable narrator however the circumstances of this story are different. As an Asian American woman I am enraged by June but this anger kept me turning every page. There was never a point during this story where I wanted to root for the main character which was a shocking revelation for me. It’s so uncommon that it enraptured my attention incredibly quickly and I couldn’t put this book down. Yellowface is frustratingly witty and sometimes ridiculous enough to be hilarious. I really appreciate the satirical “white-woman-with-a-victim-complex persona Kuang created for June. She gets it perfectly right with the incorporation of small details such as when she imagined a movie of her life she named  Florence Pugh but only referred to Athena’s actress as the girl from Crazy Rich Asians (did she mean Constance Wu, Gemma Chan or someone else entirely????) 

I’ve been meaning to read R. F. Kuang’s book Babel for so long and I didn’t even make the connection that she also wrote Yellowface until my dad told me. Yellowface is so brilliant that I have to read her other works now.  

Finishing an amazing book is the most satisfying feeling but, for me at least, its always accompanied by an insatiable need to write something of substance. I need this. I will write something, it’s just an issue of figuring out which one of my half baked ideas to flesh out. Maybe I’ll get lucky and stumble upon a successful author’s manuscript haha…
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