I know what you’re thinking. Thief. Plagiarizer. And perhaps, because all bad things must be racially motivated, Racist.
Hear me out.
It’s not so awful as it sounds.
Readers, it is exactly as bad as it sounds. Juniper Song Hayward is bad person, but don’t worry, she has forgiven herself.
Yellowface is told to the reader by June. We are her confessor. She tells us all of her resentments, fears, manipulations, and triumphs. Most of all, she tells us her rationalizations.
Athena Liu and June Hayward are the same age and attended Yale and many of the same writers workshops together. After college, their careers diverged with Athena becoming a breakout literary star and June becoming a failed writer and a standardized test tutor. They get together periodically, though June isn’t sure why, except that Athena doesn’t seem to have any friends and June likes to torture herself with jealousy. On the night they get together to celebrate Athena’s Netflix deal (see above, June torturing herself), Athena dies in a drunken choking accident and June steals her completed manuscript.
Yellowface is a satire, a psychological thriller, and a ghost story that ends as a horror story. It’s What Lies Beneath with the cheating husband as our narrator. As unpleasant as June is, the book is hard to put down. I have learned that I will read about awful people and horrible things if R. F. Kuang writes them. I probably missed a lot of the pointed publishing commentary, but I did not miss the white woman fragility of it all.
CW: on page choking death, emotional manipulation, psychological terror, bodily harm, white supremacy in action.
I received this as an advance reader copy from William Morrow and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.
