I have heard and seen a lot about Yellowface by R. F. Kuang these past years. It is one of those books that you see everywhere – in airport lounges, at the beach, in the train and even on billboards. So I was understandably quite curious to find out if this novel would live up to it’s billing.
Overall I found Yellowface to be quite an easy-to-read, well polished commercial litfic novel with a mildly intriguing plot. A struggling B/C-list caucasian female author, steals the work of a popular A-list Asian author, onstensibly a frenemy of hers from college, after she dies in a freak accident one night. She then meteorically rises in the literary world only to face repeated scrutiny and accusations of cultural appropriation and plaigirism, which ultimately are revealed to be true in a dramatic, public fashion. At times, I found the story slow moving, yet it managed to engage my curiosity sufficiently for me to persevere to find out what would happen in the end.
The most interesting part for me, especially as an author, was not the main thread of the narrative, but rather the backdrop to the story – the literary world which the main protagonists struggles to navigate. Along the way the story takes a number of potshots at the publishing industry, highlighting its superficiality and fickleness, as well as many of it’s pervasive flaws and blindspots, particularly when it comes to non-caucasian authors (which are incidentally very relatable).
Yet in a strange way this novel struck me as a flagrant example of commercial litfic novel that it was also poking fun at. It’s not a story that lingered with me after I read it and I certainly wasn’t blown away by the prose like I have been by Ocean Vuong, Han Kang and Sandor Marai. Yellowface is without a doubt an entertaining read, yet to me it lacks the finesse of a novel that will stand the test of time. Hence why I have given this book a solid 3⭐ rating.
Thank you as always for stopping by! Please feel free to share your thoughts or reactions in a comment below. Also, if you would like to receive more updates about my writing please consider joining my newsletter mailing list by subscribing below.