R.F. Kuang’s ‘Yellowface’ follows the spiralling story of June Hayward, a white author who steals an unpublished manuscript, written by a more successful Asian American novelist who died in a freak accident, and publishes it as her own.

Wow this was a compelling read! Kuang explores a story that’s dark, obsessive, witty, gossipy and truly maddening. It absolutely succeeds in creating the most unlikeable main character—the driving force of the anger and exasperation from the first sentence to the last. June is bursting with the ugliest jealousy, building lies upon lies, shoving her way into a space, a history and a story that is not hers to tell. The story is perfectly paced and constantly moving, it’s riddled with the relentless input of social media, and keeps you on the edge of your seat wondering how much further June will take her lies, and when she might finally break.

‘Yellowface’ is a quick and vicious satire, sharply laying down racism and diversity in the publishing industry. This was an incredible litfic debut!

This book was incredible. I didn't find it heavy-handed at all, and the pacing was remarkable. The tone was really spot on. I wouldn't say it was lit fic, but it's honestly one of the best things I've read on netgalley. The pacing was really great, and I thought the peripheral characters were well drawn (i particularly liked Danielle). It had a frenetic quality to it which made it really enticing. I also really liked the ending – i did not predict it at all but it created a really effective story arc. I predict this book will be huge.

The premise of this book really drew me in - Athena Liu, a darling of the literary world dies in a freak accident and her 'best friend', a nobody by comparison, steals her unfinished manuscript for her own.

I loved that you could really sink your teeth into hating June, the main character of this story. It was a lot of fun just waiting for her to be caught out and seeing several of the close calls. However it did start to feel a bit like a thriller and then immediately not? That part really felt half-formed for me.

I think I would've enjoyed a bit more ambiguity as to whether June was truly a villain the whole way through. There was no point at which you think "well maybe I can see where she's coming from" she's just truly awful. And as I said she's fun to hate, but a bit more nuance would've made the story richer.

This is a fun book that I know people will really enjoy and absolutely fly through. It does provide quite a cutting commentary on racism within the publishing industry which feels exceptionally timely right now.

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the opportunity to review this book!

This is the kind of book that you can’t stop reading until you reach the final page. Great opening line! The standard of writing is high, fresh, unapologetic throughout the novel. It’s also very meta (I liked the mention of HarperCollins!). A dark satire that provides the reader with a peek into the publishing world through a distorted prism. The central themes such as racism, plagiarism, and lack of representation are exceptionally well-executed. We’re presented with an unlikable main character — June Hayward — the antagonist of this story. Her voice becomes more unhinged, unfiltered as the story progresses until she descends into complete madness of perception. This is the first novel I read by Rebecca F Kuan and certainly not last! Absolutely blown away!

I found this book really hard to pin down: there is so much going on that it was difficult for me to fully encapsulate my emotional journey throughout this fast-paced rollercoaster of a book. I will say that I read this through two train journeys and I found the first section of it darkly hilarious, so do with that what you will.

Having read tpw series, this is significantly different in tone, but yet it is clear that R.F. Kuang's voice resonates as strongly in Yellowface. This is a very ambitious attempt to examine the complex themes presented here, exploring the treatment of BIPOC authors and the Asian American community's experience within the publishing industry, as well as the expectations placed on them to conform to the narratives the industry wants them to tell.

I could tell how passionate R.F. Kuang was about the subject, and really enjoyed the interplay and inclusion of Book Twitter and pop culture references like The Untamed and bubble tea. Some might find these references to be too much, but considering how intertwined the publishing industry is with Twitter, I would consider it stranger for this discourse not to be included within this book, especially considering how much public opinion can hold sway there, particularly for debut authors or authors in the beginning stages of their career.

Juniper Song Hayward is a character that is hard to love, and entirely easy to hate, as even the sympathetic lines of her character do barely enough to soften her and make her relatable in any way. The true draw of her character lies in the juxtaposition between her and Athena Liu, and the complicated relationship they share. Athena's death early on in the book defines the trajectory of the story, and her ghost haunts the rest of the piece, both in the actions Juniper takes in reaction, and in the justifications of Juniper's actions in attempts to displace her own guilt, though it never quite works because she knows deep down that what she's doing is wrong. While I pretty much haaated Juniper for the racist, self-pitying pos she is, the recollections and snippets of their friendship?/rivalry?/acquiantanceship? were entirely fascinating, and some of them made up my favourite parts of the book.

Yellowface is meant to be dramatic with a darkly satirical tone, and the drama certainly seeps through near the end, with elements of horror that I wish had had more follow-through than how it ended, which almost felt rushed after all the suspense.

That said, there was a quietly spellbinding quality to the story, making it almost impossible to put down (even during sections where I didn't quite enjoy it) despite my continuous distaste for the protagonist. There were many elements of Chinese culture that brought me pangs of nostalgia (hello Chinese ghost literature, A Chinese Ghost Story/Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, anyone?) and brought me back to memories of my childhood. The experience of writing that rfk so eloquently captures is also something that any writer can resonate with, that need to create and want to be eternal something I'm sure that many of us understand.

All in all, I don't always read literary fiction, but I did find this book entertaining and would recommend it for the heavy but significant themes it explores, as well as its insightful look into the publishing industry.

I don’t know where to start with this one. On the one hand, I thought this was definitely entertaining, easy to read, and paired with witty, sometimes funny, prose. However, I do wish that the narrative voice had been handled differently and that the author had allowed the reader to do his own thinking. As much as I liked reading the prose, it did feel preachy at times. During the whole story, the narrative only allows for one opinion, one take on the main character’s actions. Whatever she does, there is a reaction within the text to her actions. While in some scenes this is cleverly done, in other scenes it feels repetitive and preachy. I think a toned-down narrative voice only would have benefitted this book.

What I enjoyed while reading was the main character’s emotional spiral towards the end, her inner voice, and how you could slowly follow her descent into paranoia. This part was well-written, and although the main character was completely unlikeable I think that was just what this book needed. The other characters mainly served as caricatures, none of them well-developed, but it worked because that’s just how she viewed them.

When it comes to the plot, this was a little all over the place. I enjoyed the first half, but in the second half, this seemed to drift up into a story that felt like it tried to be a thriller but never quite got there. I don’t think the ending was particularly strong, it was predictable but also not very exciting or memorable, and everything kind of ended just the way it started. During the last few pages, the book spelled out its message to the reader word by word, which I don’t think would have been necessary. I think the reader could have come to this conclusion on their own.

4.5/5 ⭐️

Yellowface follows an author — a racist white woman who steals her late friend’s manuscript; it explores themes of racism and white supremacy in the publishing industry and community. It highlights how minorities are treated as if to check a diversity box in the process and how strenuous it is for non-white authors to get a deal.

Kuang did an excellent job with our narrator, Juniper, who comes across as this racist, liberal persona that keeps justifying her disgusting actions without taking responsibility. I loved reading the corruption arc as she kept getting worse with each act.

This book speaks a lot about publishing, and includes many pop culture references. When reading some parts it felt like I was scrolling through my Twitter feed as mentions of cancel culture, author drama, lack of representation, and poorly written diverse characters (by white authors) were a significant part of this book.

For a drama/thriller Kuang’s writing style was very fitting as it was fast paced and engaging at all times. Every chapter had me hooked and questioning so many things, and i found the plot to be exciting — rival best friends with death and theft in the mix? Who wouldn’t want that?

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC!

2.5/5

Yellowface was not what I expected. To be honest, I didn't find it enjoyable. It's more an educational, enlightening satirical read written in a memoir-like format than your typical contemporary novel. As a result, I found the tone monotonous, as everything is simply told to the reader.

The fact that we're reading from the POV of a white racist author had a play in that. You get to see the side of minorities when you're in June's head: the erasure, the cultural appropriation, the blatant yet oblivious racism, the issues within the publishing industry, what it's like to be an author... There are so many topics that I don't think I'll remember all of them. The author did a fantastic job with all those.

I couldn't stand June. Being in her head was like reading "I'm not racist BUT...". She's delusional, manipulative and so full of herself. However, through her, the author showed the toxicity of social medias. If they bring awareness and rightful critics on the table, they also involve harassment, bullying, hate and fake wokeness. I've seen so much of this on Twitter that I was nodding all along.

The ending ruined the book for me. It was too far-fetched. The plot point with the ghost was already weird but the way the story was resolved was not satisfying at all.

Unfortunately I'm disappointed. At the beginning the premise sounded very interesting, but the execution wasn't good. It is very predictable and isn't subtle enough for this genre. The pop culture references and twitter slangs completely ruined it and I could not take this book seriously. It felt like the author couldn't decide what genre to write, is it funny satire or is it serious litfic? Yellowface tried to be both, but sadly fell flat on both sides.

Great read! I finished this book in a day. SUPER fast paced, literary thriller spilling all the dark tea about the publishing industry, especially POC in publishing. If you enjoyed the literary satire Disorientation about a white person appropriating another culture, Yellowface explores the similar theme but in a more fun, twisty, entertaining way. The main plot follows a white failing writer who is kind of friends with a super successful literary Asian American writer. There were twists which make you gasp even though they are predictable at times. All the characters are unlikeable and purely selfish. I didn't root for a single character. But I loved the read and the way it kept me turning pages. There is so much literary drama that this one is like a Bible of all the literary drama on Twitter. I could remember so many incidents that actually happened in real life and are referenced in the book as happening to the characters. This would make a great book club read. Don't blame me if you book meeting stretches for hours with all the gossip.

What I keep thinking about?
This is a first person narration, narrated by a white girl who takes advantage of her Asian American dead friend. I love unlikeable characters that get under your skin. In this novel, the white girl who appropriates her friend's research on Chinese history (and her book), tells the story—her friend's story, their friendship's story, her bad decisions and plagiarism, her decline, her victim blaming etc. It feels a bit too convenient, like a villain character created to have her finger in every pie and touch all the drama in the literary world in real life. Less of the character as a person and more of the character as a means to tell the story. Inspite of the first person narration, the white writer seemed closed off about her vulnerabilities and crimes: more of a fictional character on the page. Sometimes the scenes are just literary drama that you wonder where the 'personhood' of the characters (not just the protagonist) are. This bothered me a bit because RF Kuang does excellent character sketches (read The Poppy War if you haven't already). I wonder what was the motive behind the choice of POV. I am all eager to read every interview RF Kuang gives.

Would recommend for a pacy, thrilling reading session. So much to discuss. Also this is gonna rile up a lot of white people. Everything's fictional but if you've been around on Twitter long enough, you just KNOW THINGS.

Wow. Rebecca Kuang really just wrote this masterpiece. The first 30% sold this to me as a five star- and I was right.

June, as our very biased narrator, tells us a story of envy and deception. How this deception of plagiarizing her deceased friend's unpublished work took her to the highest highs and then led to her eventual downfall.

God, reading this had my blood BOILING. June excuses her racist behaviour and thoughts away by hiding behind her 'liberal' label and by saying: "Hey, I donate to AAPI organisations therefore I am not racist!".
Plus her very racist inner monologues in which she tries very hard to convince us that she ISNT RACIST. SHE'S A DEMOCRAT! SHE VOTED BIDEN!

June, babes can I pull you for a chat because this doesn't automatically make you an ally🤪

Back to the actual story, June steals a Athena's work (who is Chinese American) and decides hey, ho! Let's colonise her work! AND OFF SHE GOES twisting Athena's words into a caricature of what she had originally intended.

This book does an EXCELLENT job at balancing the boundary of cancel culture and actually calling out people like June.

Anyway without further spoilers from yours truly, this book was a wonderful ride (including the amazing lil plot twist at the end I almost choked dang).

Anyway R. F. Kuang I love you❤️

In a short but memorable novel, Kuang explores the intersections of race, ethics and publishing in a compelling story about the theft of a deceased Asian-American author's manuscript by a white author. The main character's internal monologue can be so despicable that the novel itself can be difficult to read at times - this is a book that is sure to initiate valuable conversations about discrimination, legacy, and identity.

When I started this book I had no knowledge of how anxiety ridden, edge of the seat, modern and meta it will be. It's strange to see the author who I admire talk about BTS, Untamed, Twitter and Tiktok in a single book. A thriller masked as a literary fiction, this book seems like a social commentary on the world of authors and the writing industry. This book brings the readers, publishers, authors, struggling writers and reviewers together and collectively observes them.
It made me very reminiscent of Stargazer by Laurie Petrou where we can see how envy in young girls can take an ugly form, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier - someone's past haunting your future and keeping you in the wake of it and Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid- how social media can play a big part in making or breaking someone's life. Adding in the vast expanse of the publishing world- i had no idea it was such a hectic world and the importance of good literary agents.

I still feel like this was an experiment conducted by RFK to observe our reactions on this. She is probably sitting in her cozy chair observing the reviewers leaving their tiny yellow starred reviews on Goodreads and reading them. So different from her previous works which were heavily fantasy based.

Right off the bat I HATED Juniper Hayward and Athena Liu; such snobby, privileged, entitled, frustrating and flawed characters that star as the main leads. Athena is a successful author and Juniper is a <i>struggling</i> author trying to make her ends meet. An opportunity strikes when Juniper decides to make her friend's work as hers. It's a great idea especially since Athena is no where around and doesn't really have that many people. This leads to a crazy journey with a mountain of lies, betrayals and crime (not on the paper, ofcourse 😉).

A book that was a window into the world of authors. I had assumed that as an author writing takes up most of their works but I realised it go beyond- cultural background, social media presence, promotions, hashtag worlds, critics and agencies. All in all, I have a newfound respect for authors after this.

It's been two days since I finished and this book still pops up in my mind when I'm on twitter or scrolling through my insta feed. Thinking about it, makes me panic for Juniper. She set up her own trap and she just couldn't stop herself from being her own worst enemy. I empathise with her but goddamn she was sooo frustarting to read. I had various instances where she would be being her despicable self and had to stop myself from rolling my eyes and exclaiming “stop crying and work, girl”. Athena is another case, but I would refrain before I spill anything spoiler-ish.

A short thriller/lit fic that one can read in few sittings.
Brilliant, gripping, absolutely disliked the lead character but couldn't help sympathise with her. A thriller masked as lit fiction. A book that is very much relevant to the current times.
Kuang once again proves she is here to stay in the writing world- be it literary fiction, historical fiction or fantasy.
Thank you to Netgalley, HarperCollins UK and Harper Fiction for this arc. I will be forever thankful for this opportunity. ❤️

i'm being generous already when i say that it is OK, because i personally do not like these kinds of books. while i appreciate the look inside the publishing industry and social commentary, i found the tone and execution quite heavy-handed.

it's certainly well-written, but personally i didn't like the writing style or the narrative voice. i know rfk intended the characters to be unlikeable, but i did not root for them at any point of the book. i was irritated most of the time, so i can't really say that i enjoyed reading this. i've read my fair share of books peopled with unlikeable characters, but this one here is just unbearable and repetitive. it got so boring the last third of the book that i had to take a nap before continuing.

i think my main problem is that the author's personal voice bleeds through the text and does not give the reader much room to think. rfk frames the story in a way that clearly shows the readers what she thinks and, in a way, she's telling us what to think. in tpw i excused it as a debut author's mistake, while in babel i found her passion about the themes charming— but here in yellowface i realize that rfk is unfortunately incapable of separating her own voice from the text, which is very grating to my brain. i won't get into the specifics, but it's just SO irritating to read. i also think that i would have appreciated the book more had it cut back on the pop culture references (which i do not think will age well btw). i would have liked this more had it been written with more finesse and subtlety. i don't know how to word this better but the author needs to learn how to write better.

anyway, i don't think rfk is cut out to write in this genre. my review is posted on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4817994764?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

this is a masterclass in writing from the point of view of an unlikeable protagonist. at first, June makes bad, snap decisions and the second-hand anxiety is intense. but the more she doubles down and lets slip her racism and her white saviour complex, the more gripping the story gets.

The newest publication from literary sensation R.F Kuang, ‘Yellowface’ is a fascinating read where, following the death of her asian friend (a highly successful writer), a white author takes the ladies unfinished work and publishes it as her own.

This was unlike anything I’ve read by Kuang before - the writing is less complex, it is a contemporary novel; the masterful world building we bore witness to in ‘the poppy war’ trilogy is no longer needed. But rest assured; the clever characterisation, the addictive prose and the lifetime messages that translate to every generation and every place remain.

This is utterly genius. In a fictionalised form, the white protagonist is a mockery - how absurd, we think - until we realise this novel is hardly fiction. Sure, the plot of her dead friend and the names of the characters themselves are Kuang’s creation, but the messages evoked are all too recognisable. It tackles just how apparent the need for diversity across every sphere of the publishing industry is, how white authors feel as though THEY are the victims when eyebrows are raised when they write voices that are not their own and (white) authors create a facade of racial ambiguity with carefully selected filters in order to avoid any questions regarding their research process.. By reading this characters internal monologue - it is apparent how many of these messages are transferable to authors of today; those who write harmful stereotypes harmful to the communities they claim to represent.

Phenomenally written, a vital message to publishers, writers and readers alike.

Thank you to NetGalley and the team at HarperCollins for the ARC xo ❤️

Yellowface is told in first person from the character of June Hayward. This is a literary fiction novel that is quite different from Kuang's previous books. Everyone loves Athena Liu but nobody knows June Hayward. June is extremely jealous of Athena. Athena ends up dead but June has her unfinished manuscript. June decides to plagiarize Athena's manuscript but edits it to change certain things. There is a mystery element to the story. First off this book is extremely well written and I haven't read a story like this before. I really liked how microaggressions were subtly laced in the novel to make you question things. For example, June starts complaining that sometimes her publisher team got her name wrong because they didn't take notice of her. When many POC have their name purposefully mispronounced and are ignored in publishing. However, this felt a little too on the nose in parts and June was a painful protagonist because as a reader it was frustrating to hear her stereotypes and microaggressions towards Chinese and Korean people. Also some of the references could be outdated in a few years. Overall, I would definitely recommend this to people and think everyone could get something out of this novel. My rating is 3.5 stars rounded to a 4.

I haven’t read anything by RF Kuang before, but I gather this is a bit of a departure from her previous work. Yellowface is narrated by white girl June, a struggling writer whose sole published novel was a miserable failure. A casual friendship with current literary darling, Chinese-American Athena Liu, leads to a sudden opportunity when Athena dies in an accident and June steals her unpublished manuscript. Athena’s novel turns out to be an epic war story about the experiences of men in the Chinese Labour Corps during WWI – and June doesn’t quite get it, but she rewrites it anyway. Cue fame and fortune – but will June’s theft be discovered?

This satirical novel recalls other recent thrillers about stealing other people’s ideas – Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot and Andrew Lipstein’s Last Resort spring to mind – but also has more important things to say about racism in publishing. It’s interesting on the responsibilities you take on when telling stories that are not your own. June is the most egregious example, but, if we can trust her narration, she suggests that Athena encouraged others to share their traumatic life stories with her for ‘copy’, even borrowing turns of phrase from June after she tells her about a sexual assault. Here, it made me think of Lee Cole’s Groundskeeping, which treats this question of how much we can take from others very seriously.

Kuang rightly argues that the seeming success of ‘diverse’ writers often hides deeper racism in the publishing industry, as certain writers are selected to be the ‘token Asian’ who has to write about ‘ethnic themes’, while others are ignored because ‘we already have an Asian writer’. However, I found that, by the end of Yellowface, these points were spelt out too clearly to the reader for this to be a really successful novel. Ironically, I also felt that Kuang leant too hard on June’s individual villainy and did not spend enough time skewering the industry itself. Characters say things about how bad the industry is, but there’s still a sense that good writers get what they deserve – Athena’s manuscript is picked up despite being submitted by an unsuccessful writer with ‘bad track’, and a minor character secures the deal she wanted, seemingly confirming June’s confident statement that she’s bound to get published because she’s both Asian and queer. Finally, June herself didn’t quite ring true to me. She switches between knowing what the ‘politically correct’ thing is to do (and often ignoring it) and being totally oblivious to how she’s coming across. I felt that she would have been savvier about some of the decisions she made, if only to secure her own success and self-aggrandisement.

This was completely gripping – I read it in the space of a single evening – but I hope Kuang’s speculative novels are subtler. 3.5 stars.

I will cross-post this review to my blog and to Goodreads nearer the publication date.

R. F. Kuang is exceptional. A book worlds away from The Poppy War (and I assume Babel), Yellowface is an incredible work. I'm convinced there is no genre she could not write a 5* novel in.

It's immensely readable and jaw-droppingly brilliant. Kuang's writing is succinct and effortless, and I inhaled the book in 2 sittings. I try to avoid works with main characters I dislike, but June was such a despicable lead I couldn't look away - the entire book is a crash in slow-motion, that grips the entire way through.

Two Authors, One Manuscript..
Athena Liu - the current darling of the literary world - dies by freak accident. June (Juniper) Hayward - not the darling of the literary world - watches on, unable to save her friend. Two authors, one manuscript burning a hole in June’s bag. June’s decision to work on, finalise and eventually publish Athena’s unfinished manuscript is the catalyst that sparks a catalogue of unforeseeable (at least to June) events. A rip roaring satire, tearing shreds into the publishing world of today, burning everything in it’s path. It has to be said that it’s a fun ride, despite the weighty and not to be dismissed serious undercurrents. It reads like chicklit but it’s billed as literary fiction - this is no criticism but rather it exemplifies the ease of the tale, the formation of its’ unforgettable and credible cast of characters, the sharp humour and the deliciously devious plotline and of a story that will run full circle again and again and again. Distinctions may well be inevitably drawn with Yellow Face from David Henry Hwang and not only in title. The irony is not lost. A one sit read, quite impossible to put down.