Smart, Savvy and Deliciously Cutting: Read Our Review of Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

What’s the harm in a pseudonym? 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 the #1 New York Times bestselling author R. F. Kuang in the vein of White Ivy and The Other Black Girl. 

Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena’s a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn’t even get a paperback release. Nobody 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 to the British and French war efforts 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 takes on questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, not only in the publishing industry but the persistent erasure of Asian-American voices and history by Western white society. R. F. Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp and eminently readable.

What a brilliant guilty delight Yellowface is. Laugh-out-loud funny meets moments of moral horror meets thriller and satire. Kuang describes her work as a horror story about loneliness in a fiercely competitive industry. In a time where we are navigating what’s appropriate, what’s appropriation, what’s straight out stealing and what role censorship – if any – should play in the arts, Yellowface is a timely and brilliant read.

Our unreliable Narrator, June Haywood (Juniper Song), holds nothing back… except when she does. Being with June is like hanging with the bad friend you know will deliver you to trouble and a raging hangover, yet it’s impossible not to be fascinated by her, whilst maintaining outrage at her antics.

Kuang’s writing is smart, savvy and deliciously ironic. I read late into the night unable to stop scratching the itch that is Yellowface. If there were a novel of the year that most encompasses and highlights the tone of our times with wicked wit and relish, this novel would hands down have my vote.

Buy a copy of Yellowface here.