Today’s review is about YELLOWFACE by R.F. Kuang. It’s a standalone dark satire about the publishing industry, social media, and cultural appropriation. This review contains very minor spoilers about the plotline.

Author: R.F. Kuang
Series: None
Age Category: Adult
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Publish Date: May 16, 2023
Print Length: 336

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Yellowface Synopsis

White lies. Dark humor. Deadly consequences… Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn’t write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American–in this chilling and hilariously cutting novel from R.F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel.

Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.

So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.

So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song–complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.

But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as the terrifying alienation of social media. R.F. Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.

Yellowface Review

YELLOWFACE by R.F Kuang is a compulsive and bingeable read that focuses on various discourse topics within the publishing industry and larger bookish community. As the official synopsis outlines, featured topics within this contemporary fiction include that of racism, diversity, cultural appropriation as well as cancel culture. While the incorporation of these themes is rather on the nose, that is not necessarily a negative thing. It flows well, plus it familiarizes unacquainted readers with some aspects of publishing and social media.

YELLOWFACE does a good job making the reader question whether to have sympathy for the White protagonist June Hayward. Her action of stealing Athena Liu’s draft manuscript after Athena’s death and then publishing it as her own is reprehensible. Regardless of the amount of effort June spent editing and adding her own artistry to it, she should have come clean at the beginning. There is no question that what June did was wrong. But once she creates this lie it becomes impossible to shed it without causing her to lose everything.

When speculations arise that accuse June of stealing Athena’s work, life becomes more of a hell for her. She receive heaps of vitriol from social media warriors. This includes death threats and accusations that amount to that of cultural appropriation. Although June made a poor life decision, the abuse thrown her way, despite the lack of public fact, is grotesque. It makes the reader wonder whether June deserves that. It also points out how easy it is to rile people up despite the fact that they have no proof. Essentially, the outrage machine is real and people love to insert themselves into controversy and dogpile onto the discourse without adding value. This is a larger theme that doesn’t pertain only to the bookish community.

With respect to the cultural appropriation topic, many accuse June of this because she is a White author who wrote about the contributions of Chinese laborers during WWI. The topic of whether White authors can write about non-White characters has been part of the bookish discourse for a while now. In this case, June read all of the same sources Athena did, and then some, to understand how to portray the characters and settings accurate to their time period. So, even though June did research, does the fact that she’s White make her unfit to author a historical fiction about the topic of WWI Chinese laborers in Europe?

The reader is also invited to consider that Athena has no background in this topic, either. Does Athena’s Chinese ethnicity make her an appropriate person to tell the story of the Chinese laborers, despite Athena being nearly 100 years removed from this topic and with no described ties to WWI? Basically, where can one draw the line between who is “allowed” to tell the story of a marginalized group of people, particularly as it pertains to fiction? (There is also the probably intentional irony that Kuang herself wrote YELLOWFACE from the point of view of a White character despite not being White.) In fact, the social media warriors posthumously pull Athena into the cancel culture drama by calling her racist against certain Chinese ethnic groups.

Kuang further muddies the moral koolaid by revealing that Athena isn’t a perfect angel, either. Both June and Athena’s ex-boyfriend describe instances that amount to emotional vampirism by Athena. Athena mines others for their painful stories and turns them into published works without so much of an attribution to their sources. So the reader must further grapple with whether multiple wrongs make a right or if June’s actions are karmic justice.

Then there’s the topic of how bestsellers become that way not necessarily through the author’s talent, but mainly because that author has the support of their publisher and marketing team. This also overlaps with how the publishing industry, at least in YELLOWFACE, may highlight diversity because that’s what’s selling. In a nutshell, it boils down to who can bring in the most money for the publisher.

Another topic that YELLOWFACE incorporates is the current mindset that opinions from White people, especially cishet White men, are bad. At this point I wasn’t sure if I, a White reader, was being baited to agree or disagree. Or whether Kuang, a minority author, included this as a genuine and non-satirical keen observation. Essentially, what I got out of it is that even if a White person has a reasonable argument (or is educated on a topic), it doesn’t matter because they’re White.

In summary, I appreciate the commentary YELLOWFACE by R.F. Kuang offers to the reader. It’s a dark satire about identity and, as Kuang mentions in the Barnes & Noble bonus material, what counts as “good” representation.

Rating: 4
Content warnings: death, rape, bigotry
Reading format: Hardback

For additional thoughts about YELLOWFACE, check out a review by reader@work. If you liked this book, you may enjoy PERILOUS TIMES by Thomas D. Lee.