Yellowface: A Dark Look into the Publishing Industry

Posted On June 11, 2023

Hi Readers! June has been super slow for me reading wise. I decided to read War and Peace this month. But, I could only read 30 pages or so. After that, I tried reading a few other books, but nothing sparked an interest. Finally, I saw Yellowface taking Bookstagram by the storm. It was everywhere. Almost everyone was reading and loving it. I had always wanted to read R.F. Kuang’s books, but never thought this would be the first one and that I would read it on an impulse. I had high hopes, but as it often happens, the book did not live up to the hype. But, it was still quite an amazing read. You can check the Goodreads Blurb here.

~~THOUGHTS~~

R.F. Kuang has explored several themes in Yellowface, not limiting to the dark side of the publishing industry, race and diversity, social media, online bullying and cancel culture, appropriation of literature, plagiarizing, mental health and more. It’s a book with the perfect combination of a playful plot along with a social commentary. Kuang delves deep into all of these themes and emphasized on each with enough content while making the message heard in a mere 350 pages. I would definitely rate the social commentary at 5/5, but the plot and characters were at 2/5. But, overall the book was a fantastic read.

~~AN EXCUSE OF A CHARACTER THAT’S JUNE HAYWARD~~

Sometimes you have these incredibly flawed, morally grey and unlikeable characters, but because of those very reasons, you end up loving them. At other times, you are able to empathize with the villains of the story. And some times, even when the characters do bad things, they are not bad people and usually have a redeeming arc. All of these on one side and then Juniper Song Hayward on the other side. I have never quite despised a character this much. She is the absolute worst. She is a meek opportunist who only cares about public perception and doesn’t think twice about leveraging from race-induced capitalism.

She simply does not care for anyone other than herself. Her frenemy died in front of her and she decided to steal her manuscript. The only reason she wrote about Chinese laborers in WWI is because the story fell into her lap. She decided to donate to an Asian American Writers’ Collective and mentor underrepresented writers mainly because the optics worked in her favour. She changed her name and took tan photos so that she ‘a white woman’ would be perceived as ‘a Chinese American woman’. She feels good about a minor victory after bashing high school kids’ stories. She gets satisfaction when an assistant’s life and career are ruined because of her actions. She even thought about how her suicide will be perceived in a positive light. Lastly, she runs away when things get even a bit tough. Every single decision of hers has been shallow, self-serving and quite pathetic.

~~VARIOUS FACETS OF THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY~~

Being a reader is being on the other side of the publishing world. I didn’t really know the mechanisms of how a book is picked, marketed, sold and so on. While this is a work of fiction, it still did shine a light on the very basics of publishing which was intriguing to read. But, it also did a lot more than that. Diversity in publishing was emphasized really well. The concepts of diversity-focused marketing, ethnic ambiguity and reverse racism are portrayed in unambiguous ways. These methods used by the publishing teams to give the authors a feeling of ‘making it’ in a fiercely competitive industry were some hard truths to read. Not to mention, the pressure on authors to always be working on the next project when their book has been published not less than a month prior. From tiny things to the big eye-opening things, Yellowface seems to have called out everything that happens in the publishing world that us readers might not be aware of.

~~ONLINE BULLYING, CANCEL CULTURE & DEATH THREATS~~

A major chunk of the book delves into the themes of cancel culture. There are always going to be people who speak for you and against you, no matter the topic. It felt like you cannot be right. Whether you decide to write or not write; about allegations against you, about plagiarizing, about your culture, about your choice of topic of book, about racism, about anything. One wrong thing said or written or even slightly speculated quickly snowballs into online bullying which leads to harassment via DMs, which leads to death threats, which leads to cancelling a person. No one really know the truth or is even bothered about the truth. Everyone is their own judge and jury passing verdicts on who is the problematic person of the day. How terrible is the era of technology. It’s harmful and has the potential to drive a person to commit suicide. It plays such an impact on a person’s mental health and physical health. The fact that everything that happened to June is fiction but there are so many real Junes in the world who constantly face this. It was an eye opener to always be kind.

~~THE ENDING~~

I had my moments with this book. After I read the first chapter, I was hooked. I felt that the book had a lot of potential to wow me. But soon later, the pace slowed down a little and I kept losing interest. It had many plot twists throughout the story and I did enjoy them. But, then towards the end, it became really unreadable. The whole ghost narrative was dragged too long. I would have thought it would end with June committing suicide or a whole unreliable character with unstable June who made up most of the story or Athena being alive. But, having to read about a ghost and the final showdown was just terrible.

I feel that Yellowface did not match the hype, but it is still an important and brilliant read. I have rated Yellowface by R.F. Kuang at 3/5 stars!

Until next time,