Review: Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, narrated by Helen Laser, explores the biases writers face, but also the biases they carry, as well as the vitriol of the internet critics and tightrope authors find themselves on as they market their own work. While this has been marketed as a behind-the-scenes look at the publishing industry, it is more about the petty jealousies we carry as creative people, especially when people we know, love to hate, and others achieve the success we want for ourselves.
Kuang’s novel pits Juniper (June Song) Hayward against her “friend” Athena Liu in a series of unreliable narrations by June and through stories from others about Athena, but Athena cannot speak for herself in this novel because she dies unexpectedly.
That traumatic moment sets in motion the stealing and adaptation of her manuscript, but it’s a plot device, because honestly, June’s behavior and thinking throughout the novel should signal to readers that this is who she is — a thief. Jealousy of Athena’s early success has paralyzed June’s own development. She has stuck herself in Athena’s shadow with no way out, and things spiral out of control from Athena’s death onward.
I won’t go into the rest of the details because they are an unraveling that can be thrilling and make you anxious to turn the page, if you can get past June’s attitude, racism, and me-me-me focus. She plays the victim far too many times for me, even as she is making all the wrong decisions.
Beyond characterization, Kuang, on the surface, raises questions about which writers should be writing which stories and the focus on diversity in the industry as a “race-washing” commitment — it’s really just a one and done diversity quota for many publishing houses. However, because June is the main character, Kuang’s novel is limited in how deeply these issues can be explored. Much of the novel is too focused on booktuber, GoodReads, reviewer, and other critiques June receives throughout the novel, and how she tries to rationalize, justify, and defend her “work”.
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang was a mixed bag of a read for me. It was fast-paced, but there were points where the story got bogged down because of June’s narrative. And the reveal at the end really left me flat. I wasn’t surprised by it and I wasn’t thrilled by it either. I wanted something more — but as the novel seems to reflect the realities of publishing today, perhaps no other ending could be written, except the predictable turn of the market trend toward diversity in the moment.
Rating: Tercet
About the Author:
Rebecca F. Kuang is a Marshall Scholar, translator, and award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Poppy War trilogy and Babel: An Arcane History, among others. She has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford; she is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale.