William Morrow & Company
Yellowface: A Reese's Book Club Pick
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INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK
"Hard to put down, harder to forget." -- Stephen King, #1 New York Times bestselling author
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.
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Book Details
ISBN:
9780063250833
EAN:
9780063250833
Binding:
Hardcover
Pages:
336
Authors:
R F Kuang
Publisher:
William Morrow & Company
Published Date: 2023-16-05
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My main thought after finishing this book was: how far will we go to make ourselves look better? June was playing the victim card while being so in the wrong and knowing she was in the wrong just so people would like her. I know nothing about the publishing world so that part didn’t hit as strong for me other than how, just the world works with racism, white people have more opportunities and get forgiven more over the “lesser” POC who often get pigeonholed into one corner and can only be one thing. I hate that I sympathized with June of watching her friend get everything she wanted and being so jealous while also pretending to support her. It’s hard to watch someone have all the things you dreamed of. This is the first book I’ve read that makes you face the things you try to ignore just to get through life and brought out a lot of questions for me and put light to things and I don’t even feel like I have the ability to review this book with all the complexities but this book will definitely be on my mind constantly.
Can you really be an author if you never find your own voice? And who is “allowed” to tell a story? Aren’t you an even better author if you can tell a compelling story that isn’t from an experience you had? Do we have to like a person to like their art? These are just a few of the questions I had while reading this book. I kind of wanted to find out I was actually reading the book she finally wrote all by herself.
The story is different from other authors books.but its cover a greate story and the way she put everything about racism and the life of a writer is interesting to read and a whole new view
Enthralling Immersive Distinctive Perspective. ABSOLUTELY LOVED the open and unadulterated discourse from BOTH POV regarding: diversity, cultural appropriation and racism. Bonus was a window into the publishing industry and the cutthroat online commentaries that can make/easily break careers. Moreover, the hypersensitive & overly confident egos of all parties/groups/factions, all vying/believing that their online voices were the absolute truth and the most important. May be an 'uncomfortable read' for some, but it is critical to gain perspective on all sides of the issues. The beginning-middle, was unputdownable while the middle-end of the book dragged way too long.
I enjoyed Yellowface more than I expected, considering it's not my normal genre, and I don't normally like the mainstream book-club picks. But this held my attention better than most. I liked the suspense of thinking the other shoe would drop and not knowing when or how. The unexpected connection with the ex-boyfriend was entertaining to me, too. Overall, a 3.5-star read for me.
