This was such a challenging read. And by challenging I mean that it challenged the way I think and see things, and I loved it. It's a quick read, fast paced and you'll want to read it in one sitting. It discusses cultural appropriation, twitter wars, racism in publishing and so much more, but does so by asking a lot of questions and not providing too many answers. I went to see the author speak, and she said that her goal is to ask questions to open up a nuanced discussion, and that she's suspicious of black and white thinking. I think this book does that, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I was completely and utterly blown away by this book. I'd heard so much hype about it but it truly paid off.

June is one of the most unlikeable but compelling narrators and characters I've read in such a long time. It was difficult to cheer for her throughout much of the book. Her constant effort to hide her actions, as well as to justify them (such as calling on Athena's actions previously) were something I couldn't look away from.

It was my first Rebecca F Kuang book and I adored it. It was stunningly written and engrossing.

I liked the writing style of this novel but I was a wee bit disappointed by how heavy handed it was regarding themes and its commentary on the book industry.

This book was a difficult read but I think that was the intention. It's a fascinating deep dive into the current (and historical because how much have they changed) issues that plague the world of fiction publishing. As someone familiar with the academic publishing landscape I enjoyed learning about this and drawing parallels with my own experiences in places. The main character feels like the main villain throughout for me but I'm conscious of how much the author wanted to complicate the victim/ villain roles and show us all sides to the story. I disliked June and her white woman victim mentality a lot but I appreciated the way Athena's flaws were also shown. Whilst reading the book, I felt a constant knot of anxiety (like June) about how it was all going to end. I liked the ending and the twists along the way. This book does what I think it set out to do - expose the flaws of performing diversity and antiracism in the publishing industry.

Following a passive aggressive ‘friendship’ this is a good read. There are a lot of characters to keep track of and some of them aren’t that likeable. But a great read if you take a step back and look at what is being said

Yellowface is part satire about the publishing industry, part train wreck you can’t look away from, filled with unlikable people and twitter call-outs. The narrator June’s first book tanked, while her friend (rival) Athena’s books have all been best sellers. When Athena unexpectedly dies, June is in a position to take the first draft of Athena’s unseen-by-anyone-else-yet upcoming book about Chinese labourers in WWI, edit it and sell it as her own. The consequences of this plagiarism haunt her… perhaps literally.

As someone with more than a passing familiarity with the publishing industry, I spent this book alternating between gasping, laughing out loud and trying to hide behind my fingers (this doesn’t work as well for books as it does for films, I discovered). The prose is easy and conversational, while the drama was balanced skilfully between outlandish and believable. I’m a big fan of Kuang’s fantasy books, so I enjoyed this as her first foray into Contemporary lit.

There were layers to the story that were hinted at but which I wish has been explored in more depth: Athena’s socioeconomic privileges, her relationship with her family (especially her mother), the structural issues within the publishing industry that go beyond twitter drama, the ethics of profiting from other people’s suffering (and the nuances of relationality to that suffering). I understand that it might have been difficult to dive into the stuff about Athena given who June is as a narrator, but I still feel like the result misses the mark on a deeper critique of the publishing industry.

How is it possible to enjoy a book SO much whilst simultaneously despising the protagonist?

I’m not sure I’ve enjoyed disliking someone as much as June. She is relentlessly self-centred and her ability to convince even herself that she has done no wrong was unbelievable. But there was something absolutely addictive about this book - I couldn’t put it down!

Kuang doesn’t hold back with insights into how the world of publishing works and the influence of social media and blogging communities. There is a huge amount of discussion that is triggered from this book and I don’t doubt it will be talked about for years to come - an exceptionally clever novel!

Thank you to Borough Press, R F Kuang and NetGalley for my early review copy in exchange of a fair and honest (late) review.

I didn’t know what to expect going into this book but every page was better than the last. Having read a sample chapter way before publication I knew from the get go this was going to be a cracker and Kuang does not disappoint. Full of zest and unapologetic rage, Yellowface is a thrilling, cynical look at the publishing industry. The book follows Juniper Song, friend to the elusive, bestselling Athena Liu. After her sudden death - a scene that left me unsure whether I should be laughing or horrified - June steal Athena’s final manuscript and manipulates it into a work of her own.

The whole book is awful, but in the very best way. Juniper is inexcusably awful, constantly finding ways to validate her behaviour and demonise Athena. Athena, or the ghost of her personality revealed to the reader through June’s perspective, is also seemingly awful, a woman who plays on the trauma of others to profit with her bestselling novels. The publishers are shambolic and opportunistic, and the book was so undeniably gritty I read it all in one sitting. Bravo!

This book is very popular, but for some reason I wasn't completely hooked.

I know I'm in the minority here as its a very popular book. It's also a great concept but for me I couldn't actually get into it.

This is not my kind of book. Not usually, anyway. If your book doesn’t have fantastical worlds, creatures ready to rip you a new face or complex world building then nowadays it may not do it for me. Except it did and I am so happy I picked it up.

I’m still experiencing second-hand paranoia though. This book gave me such intense paranoia - I’m not a writer; I didn’t steal any work of a dead writer friend. June did. And yet, I felt like I was June, desperately trying to stay in the shadows and not get found out. Every close call had me ripping through the pages to make sure “we” (June, obviously, not actually me) hadn’t been caught. Bit difficult when your now-dead buddy’s manuscript turns out to be a bestseller. A bestseller that you wrote your name on and claimed as your own, which now has you doing author events and interviews. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

But this book is also an interesting assassination of the toxicity, sometimes, of the internet. Once suspicions are raised, and actually even before, the keyboard warriors rear their ugly heads and start picking at June. Sometimes it’s about the book, sometimes it’s just plain nasty, but of course there are some nice things in there too (which, as we all know, the nice ones don’t hit home half as hard as the nasty ones do, unfortunately!).

And of course, it’s an incredible insight into the world of publishing. The good, the bad and the racist.

I enjoyed it so much. It was pretty predictable, but I still enjoyed the ride nonetheless.

ARC provided from the publishers in exchange for an honest review.

Oh terrible women, how I love to read about you.

Juniper Song is a nasty, scheming, protagonist who steals her Asian best friend's manuscript after she suddenly passes away. The rest of this book follows June as she desperately tries to keep her secret safe, and face off against her detractors. She's an awful and unlikeable person, but the balance is struck well with a deep lack of self-awareness that makes her almost funny in places.

The pacing of this book is REALLY good, and it's easy to just fly through. I was never bored. The prose is also solid, which can sometimes be a difficult balance to strike when writing from a first person POV.

I have only two criticisms: 1) The plot twist at the end didnt really work for me, because it was painfully obvious who who behind the shenanigans from the get go, and 2) Theres a certain mean-spiritedness in some parts that make me feel like Kuang is attempting to dismiss criticisms that she herself has received, as if she's trying to say "this is how ridiculous you look" to her own detractors. However, both of these problems are a matter of opinion, and dont detract from the fact that this is indeed a very good book.

8/10

I read this book after reading quite a lot of hype about it. Some of it really good and some of it definitely not. I lean towards the good. I hated the main character, and to be honest, most of the characters in the story! But that didn't stop me from really getting ij to the story. I thought it was really clever and a very interesting take on book tok and twitter, racism and cancel culture as well as an interesting insight it to publishing a book! Really enjoyed and would recommend!

Yellow face by Rebecca F Kuang

3 STARS

A solid enough read. I expected to enjoy this one more than I actually did. The authors written some good, unique fantasy novels previously but this one didn't quite hit the mark. A difficult and thorny topic to discuss but one the author doesn't shy away from so credit must be given.

This either works for you, or it doesn’t. It’s not subtle, it has many cycling arguments and repetitive scenarios, especially around social media – but if you have spent any time at all on the bookish side of Twitter, Goodreads and the like – there is a lot of recognizable moments in this. The dog piling, the instant judgements, the reviewer/author spaces debate. June is an awful character, not just for her initial theft, but the thoughts and justifications that fly across her mind, the entitlement – it’s extremely frustrating to be in her brain. This is full on contemporary, and reads that way as well, so if you’ve come from The Poppy War, or Babel – do not expect for it to feel like the R.F. Kuang you know.

It's very rare for me to come across a book that's both insanely difficult to read and impossible to put down and Rebecca Kuang has nailed this exact genre. At this point I'm ready to preorder anything she puts out so I feel so blessed to have gotten the advance copy.

All of the characters are horrible, the storyline is horrible, the social media storm is horrible, and I enjoyed every single word of it. It felt both uncomfortably familiar and engrossingly new. It feels like a much-needed scathing look at the world we live in but also satisfyingly self-indulgent. I just think Rebecca should be allowed to publish whatever she wants because she has never once missed.

Yellowface was a hell of a ride, and I did not want to get off. It was a fast-paced, thrilling book, that simultaneously had thoughtful, well-considered things to say about diversity in publishing, the concept of authorship, authorial voice, and the insular bubble of online book discourse.

All the reviews I found about this book framed it like some kind of stunning takedown of publishing. While I see why they had the view, I got a slightly different impression. The portrayal of the characters actually made the narrative a lot more nuanced than most reviewers would have you believe, and while the book industry certainly isn't lauded as something kind and good, there is a bittersweet love to the way Kuang writes about it. It reminds me of the way that thespians talk about the theatre; with sad devotion, because there's nothing else they could ever fathom doing, no matter how much it hurts them. It's the kind of love that rips your soul to shreds, and that love shines through every one of Kuang's words.

There are villains in this story, but they are nuanced and sympathetic. Yellowface is a book without excuses. The characters simply are who they are. There are moments where growth is possible, but there's nothing so neat about Yellowface that its characters will follow traditional growth beats. The characters are messy, because people are messy, and in the real world, you can't just wrap things up with a neat little bow with a card that says what lessons you've learned.

This would have been a five-star read for me, but I must admit, I found the ending a little abrupt and jarring. It felt cartoonish in comparison to the cruel reality of the rest of the book, and it knocked my rating down by a star. But the rest of the journey was well worth the effort.

First of all, thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

After tackling translation studies in Babel (published in 2022), Rebecca F. Kuang discusses the publishing industry in Yellowface, which was first published on May 25th, 2023. In this standalone, we follow June "Juniper Song" Hayward as she steals her dead bestselling author's novel and deals with the consequences of publishing it under her own name.

This book was a page-turner. I honestly didn't think I would enjoy this book as much as I did, but it was a huge success for me and I read it in less than four hours. Similarly to when I was reading Babel where I had some experiences with translation studies (five years in university), I also have that kind of link to Yellowface as I work in the publishing industry. I really enjoyed the fact that the author described what it is like to publish a book, what happens with editors and the publishing house, and the whole process (auctions, deciding on the cover, how to promote a book).
The plot was fantastic with a kind of predictable end, but it was really difficult to pinpoint the literary genre of the book: it is a contemporary fiction mixed with a satire and mystery/thriller, and it is unlike everything I have read before. Although we only follow one character, I appreciate the fact that we get to see the point of view of different "kinds of' authors: the debut author who does not sell a lot of books and who could be considered as a "failure", the bestselling author, and the cancelled/criticised author.

While Yellowface is a fiction book, it raises the question around and deals with plagiarism, cultural appropriation, racism and grief in a brilliant way.

I highly recommend this book!

Wow, this book is everywhere. Everyone I know is either reading it, had read it,, or has it on their TBR. As a publishing human, I was keen to read. It's so terrifically accurate about our world, and the machinations within it. I was wrapped up in this most of the way along, however it lost me a bit in the second half. I love that it's cracked whatever that thing is that gets everyone intrigued. It's a fun, smart, blistering read.

This was my first Kuang book, after having her novels on my shelves for years and just never getting around to picking them up. And I have to say, I LOVED it. The writing instantly captured me, it was easy to read without feeling too slow. I found myself physically cringing at certain points because of what June would say, which I'm sure was the intention. Personally, as someone who has both white and Asian parents and heritage, this was so interesting and validating, and I can see how it can spark important conversations. Reading Athena's point of view, framed by June's narration, was both frustrating and eye-opening, and I think Kuang balanced the satire and seriousness well.

I think June was the perfect level of annoying and ignorant to dislike her, without it ruining the story. There were multiple points were my jaw dropped and I had to take a second before reading again. From start to finish, the entire story was well written, plotted, and overall brilliant, entertaining and unsettling in parts.

Billed as a literary thriller about a stolen manuscript and a satirical look at the darker side of the publishing world, the premise of Yellowface drew me in immediately. I haven’t read R.F. Kuang's previous books for no reason other than their blurbs never appealed to me.

Yellowface is an intense and compelling read, but for me, it tried to do too much and fell flat as a result. The tl;dr is that I loved the premise, but not the execution!

June Hayward's debut novel wasn’t exactly a hit. Athena Liu is a bestselling author and literary darling. Their relationship is complicated. They are not quite friends but not quite colleagues either. When Athena dies (it's in the blurb, so not a spoiler), June steals her unpublished manuscript and sets out to have the career she feels she should have from the beginning. Say goodbye to June Hayward and hello to Juniper Song.

I don't subscribe to the notion that everything a fictional character does or says is rooted in the author's beliefs. But here, I found it difficult to separate what I know about Kuang's opinions on people writing whatever they want instead of solely writing what they know regarding race, gender, sexuality, etc. Yellowface didn't feel like an exploration of racism in publishing, cancel culture, and white privilege so much as being whacked over the head repeatedly by 'the point'.

There is nothing wrong with an author setting out to make a specific point; I love a good issue-focused novel. But with Yellowface straddling two genres – literary fiction and satire – the balance between them got lost, which left me wishing the story was wrapped up much sooner than it was.

In the weeks since reading it, I have returned to one question; who was Yellowface written for? The novel is an international bestseller, so it has an audience. However, I'd love to know what people who aren't terminally online or knowledgeable about the publishing industry discourse of the last few years think about social media's role in the story. Some of Kuang's best writing is during the online cancellation campaign. But does that seem as equally far-fetched to people not in the know as the rest of the novel? Even though the accuracy of Kuang's portrayal of social media cancel culture is the novel’s strength.

It is also fascinating to watch the publicity campaigns around Yellowface and how they echo some of what Kuang discusses in the novel about how publishers decide to put their money into massive PR campaigns for X novel versus barely promoting Y novel.