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A review by slippy_underfoot
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
4.0
What a great book.
Ignored author June has had a friendship of sorts with Athena since their college years. Athena is of Chinese descent, graceful, beautiful, and her books have been wildly successful. Both are obsessive writers who find it difficult to connect with people. When we join the story June is mulling that Athena just wants her around to remind her what failure looks like.
They have a night out together, which June is finding initially quite wearisome but later, while they drink and goof around in Athena’s apartment, they actually find themselves really enjoying each other’s company.
Or so June tells us.
As the apartment contains the manuscript of Athena’s next book, unseen by her agent or editor, and a freak accident finds Athena dead before the night is out and the manuscript in June’s bag, it becomes apparent that her entire narrative is one of self justification.
As she reworks Athena’s manuscript and starts to pass it off as her own we can see that June will adopt any angle that might put her in a good light.
We see her make Really Bad Choices, ones most of us would never make and would find appalling, but she’s so painstaking in her self justification, so mired in her mendacity, that we can see exactly why SHE feels these are the right things to do even while we’re shaking the book and imploring her to think again.
As the nightmares - entirely of her own making - stack up around June we see how political, personal, and cultural barriers can impede the struggle for success for everyone, how frustrations can narrow one’s perspective into a beam of bigotry and spite, and how - in desperation - one can be grateful for support from any source, regardless of your repugnance at their stance on other matters.
Trust me, I’ve hardly scratched the surface here. This book is so rich and provocative, finding pointed things to say from opposing perspectives on matters of race, cancel culture, cultural appropriation, and “misery lit” among others.
It also flies along, is written and constructed beautifully, and is hugely entertaining while being enthusiastically and energetically disruptive.
Loved it.
Ignored author June has had a friendship of sorts with Athena since their college years. Athena is of Chinese descent, graceful, beautiful, and her books have been wildly successful. Both are obsessive writers who find it difficult to connect with people. When we join the story June is mulling that Athena just wants her around to remind her what failure looks like.
They have a night out together, which June is finding initially quite wearisome but later, while they drink and goof around in Athena’s apartment, they actually find themselves really enjoying each other’s company.
Or so June tells us.
As the apartment contains the manuscript of Athena’s next book, unseen by her agent or editor, and a freak accident finds Athena dead before the night is out and the manuscript in June’s bag, it becomes apparent that her entire narrative is one of self justification.
As she reworks Athena’s manuscript and starts to pass it off as her own we can see that June will adopt any angle that might put her in a good light.
We see her make Really Bad Choices, ones most of us would never make and would find appalling, but she’s so painstaking in her self justification, so mired in her mendacity, that we can see exactly why SHE feels these are the right things to do even while we’re shaking the book and imploring her to think again.
As the nightmares - entirely of her own making - stack up around June we see how political, personal, and cultural barriers can impede the struggle for success for everyone, how frustrations can narrow one’s perspective into a beam of bigotry and spite, and how - in desperation - one can be grateful for support from any source, regardless of your repugnance at their stance on other matters.
Trust me, I’ve hardly scratched the surface here. This book is so rich and provocative, finding pointed things to say from opposing perspectives on matters of race, cancel culture, cultural appropriation, and “misery lit” among others.
It also flies along, is written and constructed beautifully, and is hugely entertaining while being enthusiastically and energetically disruptive.
Loved it.