I’ve read a few different books by R.F. Kuang, enough to know I have a generally mixed perspective on her novels. I really enjoyed reading Babel and found its concept fascinating and story to be well paced and enjoyable. Katabasis meanwhile left a bad taste in my mouth, I found it both derivative and overly pretentious. But because of my mixed feelings I’ve given her another go and read Yellowface, which she released in 2023. The story is what the name suggests, it’s about a white author stealing the story of an Asian author and putting an ethnically ambiguous pseudonym on the cover so that she can sell more copies. It’s meant to be a dark satire of the publishing industry, where you’re kind of meant to hate everyone. My thoughts on it are rather mixed but I overall think it was a good read but with a disappointing ending.
The narrator of Yellowface, Juniper “/June” is deeply dislikable and I absolutely love it. A good unreliable narrator makes you question everything including yourself and your own perception of the story. You can not know for certain what is or isn’t true. What makes Juniper interesting to me as a narrator is she is aware of her flaws but continually tries to justify or overwrite them anyways, she is not honest with herself first and foremost. This aspect of narration is what adds to the intrigue of the story. It’s hard to gauge precisely what is happening because all the information you take in is biased in some way — which happens to link back to the story’s main theme of telling or stealing stories that are not your own.
Another part of Yellowface that was really well done is the pacing. Things start off with a bang, someone very important dies in the first chapter, and it only gets more intense from there. The story is a slow unraveling where the main character becomes convinced that rather than playing it safe, and doubles down on her risky behavior. Most of the book deals with the online hate and controversy surrounding the main character and her writing. The scandals surrounding her work only continuously grows and grows. The very modern voice that Kuang tends to have in her writing works really well for a book that is intentionally trying to be chronically online. The escalation of the drama and tension is framed through makes you really want a solid ending that emotionally satisfies the reader.
The ending was honestly really disappointing. The point of the ending was basically “and nothing ever happens,” as in people can do all sorts of crazy unethical things and nothing will ever be done to punish them, which is absolutely true in reality regarding any industry, and especially when the individuals behaving unethically are important people in it. But that doesn’t work as an ending to a story where “nothing ever happens” is the entire middle of the book. R.F. Kuang has a habit of really hitting her audience with the point of her books over and over again. In fact, I think the only way to miss the message of Yellowface is to avoid it on purpose, even the most casual of readers will pick up on it accidentally. So the ending, being one more affirmation of the message, just leaves you wanting more. You’re left wondering what else Kuang has to say, and you’re left with an ending that, narrative- wise, is lackluster.
Overall, I think Yellowface is a perfectly good casual read, but I’d hesitate to say it’s better than a beach read.
