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Review: Yellowface (2023)
Yellowface (2023) blew my mind. This book by R.F. Kuang details the story of a white author who steals her Asian American friend's manuscript. The friend in question is Athena, who is seemingly much more successful, likable and beautiful than the author. She tragically passes away in an accident and the author's decision to publish her manuscript as her own is what sets off all the events in this book, with massive consequences that follow.
I felt like I was holding my breath the entire time I read this book. The narrator boldly commits plagiarism, steals the voice of an Asian woman for herself and publishes it. While the narrator is clearly not a good person, with the overt act of the plagiarism overarching the events of the book, I think what truly makes this an insidious read is the lengths she goes to to try and convince us, the readers, that she is a good person. The excuses she makes, the casual microagressive thoughts she has, the conniving nature of her inner monologue. But the complicated thing is, she has some redeeming characteristics too, with a sympathetic history of her own. I think the book leaves it up to the reader what moral judgements to cast on this character. It also leaves it up to us to decide where we fall on the debate of cultural appropriation. Who is truly fit to tell cultural stories? Where do we draw the line? Ambiguity always makes for a much more introspective reading experience than books that are black and white.
What allowed me to fly through this book in two days was really the abject sense of horror I had the entire time I was reading this book, likely because I knew there was no way the author would get away with her actions and the impending doom of anticipating her downfall was rather nerve-wracking. It also incorporated elements of actual, supernatural horror, as the narrator may or may not have descended to at least mild forms of psychosis when, wracked with guilt, she believes to be seeing Athena's ghost.
The novel also served as a stark commentary on the publishing industry, the toxicity behind the scenes of what sells and what doesn't, what publishers are willing to do to sell books (the author decides to publish the book with her middle name 'Song' in a transparent attempt to convince the average reader that she is Asian - a decision supported by her team), and also the hollowness behind "diversity" movements in publishing, which only seek to elevate certain, palatable stories.
It also takes aim at the fake, mind-numbing nature of social media, of public twitter cancellings and hate accounts, of the addiction to fame. Not even Goodreads was spared in this brutally honest take of just how full of shit we all are when it comes to giving our opinions on the internet, not to mention the incredibly fast cycles of public attention. It was like having a mirror held up to my own consumerist, easily distractable internet behaviour, just waiting for the next hit of serotonin or the next meme to laugh at or the next injustice to be outraged about.
And yet here I am still, putting my opinions on the internet. R.F Kuang gets a 5/5 from me though for at least briefly making me consider logging off permanently.
