This original book review was written by and posted on behalf of Gabi Huesca.
A novel about a White woman who steals the work of an Asian American woman, written by an Asian American author, Yellowface is an unbelievable story about the sinister shadows of the writing and publishing world.
June Hayward witnesses the sudden and violent death of fellow (and much more talented) writer, Athena Liu. In a flurry, June steals Athena’s near-final manuscript about Chinese laborers during World War I, and is struck by inspiration to embellish it with her own style. In a brazen move, she publishes the book as her own, suddenly rising to literary fame. Immediately, she is flagged for stealing the story from Athena, and thus begins a larger cultural debate about plagiarism, appropriation, and representation. Who gets to tell what stories? Who gets to profit from them?
The egregiousness of Junie’s choices will not let you put this book down.
R.F. Kuang gifts the reader with a page-turner brimming with entitlement and cringey moments. Kuang sows the stubborn righteousness and guilt that is born from stealing (and profiting from) another’s story while baring the insidiousness of oblivious white privilege. The writing is incisive, simple, smart.
While the colonization of storytelling is far from new, its placement in a contemporary horror story narrative makes Yellowface timeless and brilliant. Could Kuang have more deeply explored the nuances and flaws of our Asian American writer character and her privileges? Sure. Yellowface was such a fun, over-the-top read, that Kuang’s keeping it simple still felt enjoyable. Kuang forces the reader to wonder where the horror lies: in our unlikeable protagonist who insists on profiting from marginalized stories, in an industry that solely values the next big sell, or within us, the readers, who consume this content.
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