Scan barcode
A review by orb12um
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
2.0
I’ve been recommended this book countless times, seen it plastered everywhere and told that it’s unique brand of storytelling is gripping. Bizarrely, this book seems to have received all the praise and plaudits that it seemingly despises.
This whole novel seems to be about punching down from the point of an author to a readership. While navigating contemporary issues such as cancel culture and what makes a bestseller in an interesting way, the rest of the book appears to be dunking on the stupidity of the proletariat.
Kuang attempts to elicit sympathy towards the main character, but this character is clearly undeserving of our sympathy it makes me feel rather disgusted at the writing. June and Athena in the novel are presented differently, one having the success and one piggybacking. But even when they both get it, they’re so distasteful, so irreverent of other people’s opinions and so financially incentivised one can’t help that Kuang is dismissing literary criticism throughout the whole book. There exists a sense of superiority in the novel about those who make it as authors, how all the readers want to do is bring down the author and make them feel shit for some perceived micro aggression and this makes Kuang appear bitter to the industry and bitter to the reader.
It dismisses haters opinions and endorses the opinions of those who love it. The hypocrisy is mind bending.
This is a book which fetishises authors, dismisses readers and renders the subject of English literature unrequited. Ergo I hate it.
This whole novel seems to be about punching down from the point of an author to a readership. While navigating contemporary issues such as cancel culture and what makes a bestseller in an interesting way, the rest of the book appears to be dunking on the stupidity of the proletariat.
Kuang attempts to elicit sympathy towards the main character, but this character is clearly undeserving of our sympathy it makes me feel rather disgusted at the writing. June and Athena in the novel are presented differently, one having the success and one piggybacking. But even when they both get it, they’re so distasteful, so irreverent of other people’s opinions and so financially incentivised one can’t help that Kuang is dismissing literary criticism throughout the whole book. There exists a sense of superiority in the novel about those who make it as authors, how all the readers want to do is bring down the author and make them feel shit for some perceived micro aggression and this makes Kuang appear bitter to the industry and bitter to the reader.
It dismisses haters opinions and endorses the opinions of those who love it. The hypocrisy is mind bending.
This is a book which fetishises authors, dismisses readers and renders the subject of English literature unrequited. Ergo I hate it.