Spoilery Book Reviews

Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang

Back of the book

Athena Liu is a literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody.

White lies.

When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own under the ambiguous name Juniper Song.

Dark humour.

But as evidence threatens June's stolen success, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

Deadly consequences...

What happens next is entirely everyone else's fault.

My thoughts.

I loved this book, and the following essay will try to break down each of the themes that spoke to me and challenged me to think critically about my world view. Yellowface delves into the uncomfortable topic of racism, exploring white bias, how diversity can be diminishing and exploited and mentions 'reverse racism'. Set in the present day where social media dominates, Kuang accurately depicts the online environment and how we are unable to step away, even when it is bad for us.

I was riveted by this story and read it twice in a week. The writing style is very direct, punchy and purposeful. There is no meandering, flowery prose and the words are not flat on the page, but constantly pushing the story forward at lightening pace. The constant possibility of June being found out for stealing the manuscript kept me rushing forward to see when it would all crash down, because that felt inevitable. The greater her success grew, the further she had to fall. Breaking the fourth wall at the end of the book was a really interesting twist and gave the second time I read the book a different impact. Instead of taking all her words at face value, I questioned everything for the angle, the spin to make June the victim of her story.

June is an unreliable narrator. I picked up on this in a vague way the first time reading, until the ending where she tells the reader about putting a spin on her story. As a general rule, the reader wants the main character to do well, succeed in their story, and have a happy ending. Yellowface conflicts this idea because June has done something wrong and continues to make poor choices, no matter the enormity of her guilt and anxiety over the path her actions have created. The commentary this book engages in feels so relevant and is not hidden on the page. I am not used to thinking deeply about the themes of a book and dissecting it for its moral worth. Yellowface is very blunt and obvious about the issues it is tackling and I love this thought provoking element.

Context is important: I am a white woman, (brown hair, brown eyes) and I want acknowledge the privilege and bias that comes with that. I related to the main character, particularly in her passion for writing. The scene with June looking over her old notebooks, where she picks out the themes that inspired each of her stories over the years really spoke to me. In all other ways I desperately hope I am not like June. Yellowface felt like it was calling me out, making me confront my white/racial bias and I like this element. This book makes me want to be a better person.

The big question: is June racist? As a reader we understand that June's defensiveness comes from the lie she is protecting about The Last Front being her own work, but also because the original manuscript was written by someone with Chinese background. The impossible line she walks, the manuscript "can't be racist" because Athena wrote it, but never admitting that, and fighting that she did the research to not make it racist. I do agree that writers can write in whatever topic they choose. June sums it up perfectly:

"You can critique a work on the grounds of literary quality, and its representations of history – sure. But I see no reason why I shouldn't tackle this subject if I'm willing to do the work. ... Meanwhile, I think writing is fundamentally an exercise in empathy. Reading lets us live in someone else's shoes. Literature builds bridges; it makes our world larger, not smaller." pg 106

I also believe that June should have had a sensitivity reader, to cover all her bases. I acknowledge that books can depict harmful and incorrect stereotypes upon marginalised people. I am sure that due to my white bias, I have read a book that contains these harmful stereotypes, and not noticed anything amiss. Yellowface calls me out on this, makes me more aware of my own racial ignorance, and I want to do better, think more critically about how characters are portrayed.

With all this focus on the ethnicity of who wrote The Last Front, I looked up the author Rebecca F. Kuang. She is Chinese American, having immigrated from China when she was four to live in America (Wikipedia told me this). I don't think too much about who the author of a book is, but it is relevant in the age of social media where the artist and their "brand" has become just as important as the art itself. The authorship of Yellowface begs the question: how would this book have been received if it was written by a white author?

Segway into: social media and cancel culture. I love the toxic depiction of social media because it reinforces my personal opinion that social media is Bad, and I take actions to avoid it at all costs, including avoid phone screen time in general. Kuang really hits home with the feelings behind why we are so connected to the online world, how it can seem more "real" than real life. Social media can have real world consequences for peoples' careers, and cancel culture can go too far, but the premise of cancel culture is not supposed to be toxic. I haven't thought enough about where my "line in the sand" is for what is appropriate cancellation and what is too far. This is an example of yet another can of worms Yellowface opens, engaging the reader to ask these questions of themselves.

Yellowface is a daring book that jumps right into controversial topics that are sure to divide people and I love it because of this. Kuang's writing style is fantastic and I now plan to add her other books to my (very long) reading list. This book explores racism and cancel culture, asking of the reader, how far is too far, and is your justification of this biased? I hope to become a more aware reader, and reviewer, after this book. I highly recommend you read this book, if only so I can have more people to rave about it with, and debate about it with.

TL:DR

Yellowface dives right into very controversial topics: racism, cancel culture, who is allowed to write what kind of story. If you are a white person, this book may make you uncomfortable, but I implore you to sink into it, and ask some hard questions of yourself.