Yellowface Review
‘Yellowface’ is told from the perspective of June Hayward, a young author with mediocre success. After witnessing the freak accident that kills her much more successful colleague, Athena Liu, June steals her manuscript and decides to publish it under her own name. Well, actually the story is about Chinese contribution in World War I and June is a white woman, so it is actually under the name of Juniper Song. Just enough where she can still claim that she is not performing yellowface, but enough that she can pretend she is some kind of Asian. But the more she is working to hide her theft and plagiarism, the more Athena’s ghost comes back to haunt her.
I am not sure if Kuang is pulling from her own experiences in the publishing industry and how realistic it is but it felt incredibly real and frustrating. June’s delusion about why her book was not successful and Athena’s were and her inability to see anything from other people’s perspective were so realistic I wanted to shake her up and tell her to get a grip. Although the situation she was in is quite unique as in that June directly stole from Athena after her death and edited her work, she is not the first or the last white person to use Asian stories while also being incredibly condescending and racist towards Asian people. The detail of June’s constant mention of how she doesn’t like Chinese food and describes it as ‘greasy’ significantly added to this characterization. After a while, I wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince that she could write a novel even without Athena’s start and that it is more her work anyway-the readers or herself.
I also really enjoyed how Athena and her writing was far from perfect and that she was indeed a flawed person as well. Kuang was successful in making sure she does not fall into some stereotypes of Asian women. In fact, at one point she is literally called a ‘bitch’ by another character that is not June. Athena does not have a lot of space to present herself in the novel, given that she dies in the first chapter and she is told from the perspective of others and then filtered through June’s increasingly delusional narration. Yet, I still found her an incredibly compelling representation of what Asian authors, especially women are faced with in the publishing industry. The idea that she is either too Asian or not Asian enough is presented in the novel quite successfully, even if June cannot fully comprehend why Athena’s path is not easier than hers.
In her notes on goodreads, Kuang does mention she wanted the style to be similar to the tabloid and viral threads on social media and in that she is absolutely successful. Unlike her other works, this is a book that you read in one sitting as it is incredibly fast paced and it feels like one cliff-hanger after another to the point where I couldn’t put it down until just that one more chapter. And then another… And then another… On one hand, I found June so incredibly frustrating and annoying I couldn’t wait for her upcoming, but on the other hand I was dreading it as well. This book is also very meta and social media, especially Twitter, play a huge role in the unravelling of the story. I have seen this huge influence of social media be criticized, but I think that it makes perfect sense and fits incredibly well in the story.
With that said, I did expect a different kind of ending for June, either the one where she gets publicly humiliated and rightly called out for all her wrongdoings or the one where she gets off scots free. Without spoiling too much, I did find the somewhat open ending satisfactory here. Given the rest of the book, it did fit quite well.
Overall, while a somewhat unexpected turn from Kuang after her other historical novels, I did quite enjoy ‘Yellowface’ and this was another 5/5 for me. It did not make me violently weep like the ending of ‘The Poppy War’ trilogy, it was incredibly entertaining and insightful. Did you read this novel? What did you think?
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