Will I love Yellowface?

This came highly recommended from one of our guests on Re-Creative, and I was not disappointed. Kuang's satire is funny and savage. The commentary on cancel culture is also well-observed. You may not enjoy the ending (don't worry, no spoilers) but the ride is worth it even if you don't.

Much like The Plot, this novel features a writer who makes a terrible decision in an attempt to jumpstart her career.

What ensues is a satirical look at the publishing industry and the literary world in general. June, the main character, attempts to justify her actions, making readers cringe as she digs herself in deliciously deeper. A scary skewering of the writing life, I wanted to read this bestseller in a single setting.

Watching a fictional author attempt to appease the demands of publishing and, ultimately, experience the perils and pitfalls of popularity feels both relatable and voyeuristic.

I loved RF Kuang's Babel last year, and I loved this complete change of pace this year! Kuang addresses issues of cultural appropriation, race, representation, authorship, and scandal. She also manages to make the book compelling in spite of it's rather loathsome main character and subvert some fictional tropes that readers might expect.

This is the book that introduced me to Kuang's writing. It is sinister, funny, dark, sharp, and sad. It unflinchingly explores issues of diversity and privilege within a great story.

I admire Kuang's complex characters and her ability to make us see things from another person's perspective. Whether we like them or agree with them is another matter and that's interesting in itself.

Highly compelling voice and confident narrative style, both of which made this contemporary novel a compulsive read. As an author part of the traditional publishing industry, I also found this semi-exposé very relatable.

I was able to understand the New York publishing business by being carried along in the process by the main and other characters, who were pretty relatable.

R.F. Kuang's Yellowface is the old standby, a book about books, a writer writing about writing. I'm mainly a playwright, and there are more plays than I can count about playwriting. It's interesting to see this placed in the context of the cutthroat and (like theatre) increasingly identity-politics driven world of publishing. The main character June, who is white (and a struggling writer) struggles with her friendship with her incredibly successful writer friend Athena (who is Chinese), but in a sudden moment of crisis doesn't act to prevent Athena's death. Then she notices Athena's new unpublished novel on the desk...

Whoa Girl! Two Snaps Up!!!

Loud burst of laughter in a stew of snide snickers, mixed with a healthy dash of schadenfreude makes for deep waters to swim in for anyone who has written ( or intends to write) a book.

Plenty of opportunity for self and social reflection between the laughs and keeping up with the inevitable.

As an author myself, it was interesting to see the inside workings of the publicity surrounding a book release.

What a send-up of the publishing world and cancellation culture. I loved it.