Book Review – Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

This post is a book review of Yellowface by R.F. Kuang.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links which, if purchased from, may result in a small commission, at no cost to the buyer.

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Slowprose Review Format

Generally speaking, we don’t think of ourselves as “serious” reviewers, so our format may be a little different. Here is what to expect when you are reading Slowprose book reviews:

1. Cover Review – doing the cliche of judging a book by its cover.
2. Book Blurb – we share the book jacket or Goodreads blurb about the plot.
3. Intrusive Thoughts – these are the general thoughts and feelings we have about the book while reading it.
4. Book review – our overall review and star ranking of the book
5. Book aesthetics – this is how gorgeous we thought the pages of the book were, or how easy/hard it was to read, or how good the narrator was if it is an audio book.
6. Book recommendations – we talk about the author’s other books or other books that remind us of this book in some form or fashion. Basically, this is our catch-all to talk about anything else that we want to.

Cover Ranking System

All Slowprose book reviews start off just as you would in a bookstore or library—judging the cover! Our general practice is to start a book without knowing much about it. Even if the book has a lot of hype (which we love), we try not to learn much about the story before we start to read it. We like to have the story and premise reveal themselves as we go, so a lot of times we are buying or checking out a book solely because of the cover.

1. 5 Stars – stopped us in our tracks and compelled us to pick it up.
2. 4 Stars – immediately caught our eye, intriguing.
3. 3 Stars – decent cover, kept us interested enough to look at the book but didn’t wow us.
4. 2 Stars – confusing design or not our style, rarely will pick up.
5. 1 Star – walked on by without a second glance.

Book Review Star Ranking System

I know everyone has a different system for ranking books, so here is the very scientific system Slowprose uses for their book reviews and star ranking:

1. 5 stars – slammed the book shut when finished & immediately hugged it. OMG LOVED
2. 4 stars – squeezed book once closed, looked lovingly at the cover while nodding. SO GOOD
3. 3 stars – closed the cover, looked away pondering, giving a bit of a shrug & nod. NOT BAD
4. 2 stars – sighed while walking the book back to the book pile. IMMEDIATELY FORGOTTEN
5. 1 star – DNF

When it is somewhere between these reactions, the book will get a .5 rating added.

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COVER REVIEW – YELLOWFACE

This cover gets a solid 5 stars. We love it! The color makes it immediately noticeable and…well, eye-catching. (sorry) You can spot it from across a room, thats for sure. Beyond the color, it is so interesting, engaging, and intriguing all at once. It portrays a controversial topic right out of the gate and lets the reader know that this should be an eye brow raising read. It photographs well, and there is no mistaking it for another book with a similar cover. As the kids say, this is a banger.

BOOK BLURB – YELLOWFACE

Given our extreme irrational fear of ever being a spoiler for any reader, we will just share the book insert or book blurb found on Goodreads to provide the information in terms of the plot:

Yellowface:

Author June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally 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: she steals 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? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree. But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS – YELLOWFACE

I know it says in the blurb that she died of a freak accident, but did she really? I mean, I know the choking was an accident, but June/Juniper didn’t really seem like she tried everything she could to help her. Several times in the book I asked myself whether June/Juniper deliberately didn’t help, just to see what would happen? I also know that sometimes during emergency situations people freeze up, but June/Juniper mentions several times later in the book, that she remembers watching her die. Like with a detached, clinical perspective. I just imagine her standing over her, cocking her head to the side, and going “Huh!”

Throughout the book we are privy to June/Juniper thoughts, including her thoughts about how her actions were justified or understandable, even though she acknowledges repeatedly that “the idea” of the book wasn’t hers. I think people do this a lot.

June/Juniper’s initial meeting with Athena’s mom to address the moleskin journals. THERE IS NO WAY SHE WOULDN’T HAVE TAKEN THOSE JOURNALS WHEN THE MOM ASKED HER TO TAKE THEM. This bugs me. June/Juniper would have taken them, absolutely. It’s not consistent with her character at all.

BOOK REVIEW – YELLOWFACE

Slowprose Star Rating – 3.5 Stars

This book took off like a rocket and grabbed my attention right away. The death of Athena occurs really early in the book, so the first few chapters fly by. I was invested in the story right away, and really liked that it wasn’t a predictable or formulaic story line. Although it is told from June/Juniper’s perspective, it illuminates the issues that non-white writers have to deal with, which was a thought provoking perspective.

There is really no one to root for in this book. June/Juniper is the main focus throughout the book, and she is terrible. Although she acknowledges her bad behaviors, she always does it with a “yea, but…” kind of mentality. She has a few moments of guilty feelings when promoting the book, which I am not all together convinced are authentic to her. I’m not sure she would have actually felt that way. To the contrary, I think she wouldn’t have felt bad about sharing a story that wasn’t hers, but rather would have felt good about herself for shining a light on a story that needed to be told.

I think June/Juniper’s emotional devastation rings true when she is confronted by a Twitter campaign questioning whether she actually wrote the book. Here, she is being called out publicly to verify her work. She has to shut down her phone and retreats from public eye for a while. When she is confronted about it in person, it bothers her tremendously. For one reason, obviously, because she did steal the book, but the other reason is that she is being humiliated. The character of June/Juniper would absolutely hate this.

Even Athena is not portrayed as a sympathetic character, beyond the fact that she met an untimely and terrible death. Since she is told through the perspective of June/Juniper, she is diminished by her perspective that she wasn’t a great person and hey – didn’t she also steal June/Juniper’s story she told her in confidence? June/Juniper throws that in there to show that what she did isn’t so bad and, even if it was, Athena deserved it. I think the only person in this book who I truly felt bad for was Athena’s mother.

This book was a bit of a nod to the book nerd in me, with the glimpse into the world of book publishing and promotion. Comments about book bloggers, and Youtube reviews, as well as the large gears of the publishing houses choosing what books will be successful were all topics that I loved reading about.

Unlike a lot of books, I was reminded of the author a lot when reading this book. She seems like she was writing both Athena and June/Juniper’s experiences from her own. That is, Athena was slightly awkward and unlikeable, but also was a brilliant literary wonder child, with incredible success and all the backing of a powerful publishing house behind her books. This made me think this was Kuang’s experience, but she also injected a bitterness into the story from the perspective of June/Juniper. June/Juniper was bitter from not being successful and justified her actions – from stealing the manuscript, to changing certain scenes, to defending herself once the book was published – as white writer feeling like she was doing the right thing, or the justifiable thing, by whitewashing and taking credit for an asian artist’s work. This seems like a bitterness the author may have experienced at times herself, in some way. So I kept thinking this was possibly autobiographical rather than purely fictional.

Overall I am glad I read this book, and would recommend it. It is a quick, interesting, thought provoking book that left me feeling entertained, somewhat enlightened, and slightly confused.

Slowprose Star Rating – 3.5 Stars

BOOK AESTHETICS

I read the physical, hardcover version of Yellowface.

There is no real artwork within the pages other than the image above, but the text is a good font size and the book is easy to read. She changes up fonts when she references comments made on social media, and clearly outlines when June/Jupiter is texting with people.

This book will certainly add to the yellow section of your bookshelf, if you are into the color coded book shelves. The spine is quite cool, with the eyes from the cover on it!

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

Yellowface is R.F. Kuang’s 5th book and the first one outside of the fantasy genre. She wrote what is commonly called “The Poppy War” Trilogy, and it has rave reviews everywhere. We here at Slowprose confess that we started The Poppy War but had to return it to the library before we were finished, but what we read we liked. Think young child living a life of hardship making it to an elite school and being trained there in a variety of things. That’s as far as we got.

Kuang’s next book was the behemoth, Babel. Again, we started reading (listening) to this audiobook but voluntarily DNF’ed after SEVEN HOURS and only getting a minuscule portion of the way through it. It is extremely detail oriented, particularly about languages and translation, and even though it has magical elements, it wasn’t enough to keep our attention. We would, however, say that it is really well written and is a book that will certainly appeal to a lot of readers.

R. F. Kuang is clearly very intelligent and writes like she is speaking to equally intelligent people. In Yellowface, as in Babel, I had to stop and look up some words while I was reading to make sure I understood their correct meaning. She is a very good writer, so no complaints about her writing style. I would recommend any of her books, to see if they are a good fit for you. You can check them all out in our storefront, Slowestuff Books From The Blog storefront.

If you are looking for more book posts, check out the Slowprose section of the blog where we have some posts about Stephen King books and Sarah J. Maas books, among others. This is our first book review on the blog, with many more to follow.

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We hope you have enjoyed this book review of Yellowface by R. F. Kuang.

Happy reading!

Slowprose – Book Division of Slowestuff