The truth is fluid, there is always another way to spin the story.
Yellowface
by R. F. Kuang
Genre: Contemporary
About: Athena Liu has everything. She's young, beautiful, a shinning literary star with a Netflix TV deal. But when she dies suddenly, June is the sole witness. The only one who could have saved her. The only one who's seen Athena's new (and sure to be bestseller) manuscript. Passing the story off as her own doesn't even seem to be a decision she makes. Because Athena had everything: and now June will.
Thoughts
What. A. Ride. This is one of those books that you can't look away from. It hooked me right from the start and just kept going. The topics discussed are complex and Kuang offers a lot of nuance, but everything about how the story is told is written to entertain. It feels like delving deep into an internet rabbit hole.
June is of course an infuriating character but I loved watching her mental acrobats as she keeps pressing forward with the narrative that she's earned this. Her relationship with Athena is really interesting to dip into beyond the petty jealousies and Athena holds a presence throughout the novel. She's a Rebecca-esque figure driving our main character to madness with complicated shades to her personality that made you long for her to have a voice. The scenes of June editing Athena's novel were maybe my favourite - you felt the sheer wrongness of it and June's contradictory mindset was on full display.
I do wonder how people who aren't writers or in the publishing industry would view this novel as it is a behind-the-curtain look at book publishing and the writing process. The issue of Own Voices being a key topic that I don't know if casual readers really think about. It did make me think a lot about books like Memoirs of a Geisha, which I still love and think is so beautifully written, but has not only the controversy of one of the geishas the author interviewed suing him for defamation, but the Hollywood adaptation choosing to hire a Chinese actress to play Japanese. There are many messy books like this that are beloved and bestselling, and written by people who are not from the culture they're depicting. I loved the way Kuang explores these big topics; from the internet mob to June's delusions, to the awfulness of everyone in the industry - it's one big satire that seems funnily exaggerated while still reminding you of how much sad truth there is behind the joke.
The emotions in this book are real. As flawed as all the characters are, you feel their pain, you understand their thinking and Kuang puts you right there in the front seat to all their humiliations and failures.
The only miss for me in this book was the last hour as it turned a bit too meta. The book is obviously very meta from the get go, but the ending felt like we were exploring how the book should end along with the characters writing that ending. The meta book June was writing turns into a horror that turns into a thriller and then two opposing tell-alls. It was a lot of books within books and I just didn't find it as compelling as the rest of the novel.
Overall, this was a brilliantly addictive read. The characters are complex, infuriating and show the ugly truth behind writing, publishing and what we love to read. Highly recommend the audiobook version as it's narrated perfectly.
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