Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

 

Summary (from the publisher): Authors Juniper Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena is a literary darling while June is a nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls?, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse, stealing Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers 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? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

Review: Wow, wow, wow what an intriguing psychological thriller. This one instantly sucked me in as Juniper tells us about her disgustingly beautiful and accomplished friend Athena Liu, who has all the literary acclaim that Juniper desperately wants. When June happens to witness Athena's death by a freak accident, she impulsively seizes the opportunity to steal her just finished manuscript, a historical fiction novel about Chinese laborers during World War I and ultimately publishes it as her own work. 

This book is a deep dive on authorship, ownership, performative allyship, the publishing world as a whole, and the ability of social media to warp and shape public opinion. This book is distinctly uncomfortable while also being wholly bingeable. This was one of the most intriguing psychological thrillers I have read to date.  June is unlikable and unethical in nearly every way and that's the point. Readers are forced to hear her story exclusively from her point of view and it is not a healthy or balanced one. In a way, she so compulsively seeks to justify her own perspective that it was almost hard for me to believe that June could convincingly write fiction in the sense that I'm not sure of her ability to place herself in another's shoes. She seems to have little guilt or compassion. 

Over the course of this book, we see June slowly unravel as a direct result of her own actions. She is addicted to the prestige, the fame, the fortune, and the social media attention of having a best seller and manages to convince herself that she is fully deserving of it all while shooing Athena's involvement into the back corner. As a reader, it was hard to feel sorry for her or upset seeing her spiral because girl, what did you expect?! 

My only disappointment with this was with the ending. The conclusion of so many thrillers ultimately disappoints me because they take a propulsive narrative and largely believable plot points and then blow it all up with a typically unlikely ending that is difficult for to believe. I guess I just wanted June to be outed and publicly and professionally exiled and to be consigned to a mediocre existence as punishment for her crimes. 

Stars: 4