Yellowface: The instant #1 Sunday Times bestseller and Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick from author R.F. Kuang

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so, a little too “real world” for my personal reading preferences, but there is no doubt this is a provocative novel that sheds light on various aspects of the book world. One of the standout aspects of the book is the author's astute commentary on the perils faced by writers, such as internet trolls who use their freedom of speech rights to berate and belittle their creations. The story skillfully examines the commodification of writers, where their looks, personality, color of their skin and online presence become as important as their writing itself. Madelein L'Engle said, "You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children." If Rebbeca Kuang saw this quote, she must have mixed it up because she wrote this book as though it's meant for children who want to graduate to adult fiction. However, people create retellings all the time. There are lots of familiar and time-tested tropes and plots. At what point is it plagiarism? This would have been a great book for a book club.

Yellowface, A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick by Rebecca Yellowface, A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick by Rebecca

But as evidence threatens June’s stolen success, she will discover exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves. In conclusion, an amazing foray into general fiction by R.F. Kuang. I swear this woman can do no wrong. Give her whatever topic to write about and I bet she can create something incredible out of the most boring premise. I think it's impressive how she took these modern controversies and wrote them into a twisty unputdownable story. It seems to me like it's a new experiment from her but at the same time a really smart jab at publishing too.This book truly blew my mind. I was unable to put it down, yet also needed to take breaks due to the chaotic and anxiety-inducing experience of living within Juniper's mind. The character evokes strong emotions, including frustration towards her misogyny, blind ambition, and obnoxious justifications for her actions. Remarkably, I found myself attached to a book despite disliking the main character. At times, I wished I could physically enter the story and confront June Hayward/ Juniper Song, who committed the ultimate crime: stealing her late friend Athena Liu's unpublished book. The reasons behind this act of creative theft are complex and include jealousy, thirst for power, honoring her friend's work in the best way possible, and seeking personal gain. It is a tale that explores unfairness, harbored resentment, and a thirst for karmic justice. this may not bother other readers, but i can’t help but side-eye it. she gets around it by having these criticisms be made by mouthpieces—that’s another thing about yellowface, by the way. so many mouthpieces. i don’t think this is a book where readers will get very attached to the characters, not just because the mc is an unreliable narrator, but because yellowface is more of a book where characters are tools that represent different things and perspectives and are meant to be grimly watched, observed and laughed at from above. which is mostly fun, until you start to distinguish between rfk’s mouthpieces a bit: which ones she represents more flatly and more caricatured, and the one she gives more nuanced paragraphs to, from under which i think I can make out the haze of her opinions. and i’m not fond of them all the time. The ensuing story is told in such an unreliable, insidious way that it creeps under your skin. What’s so scary is that it’s 100% believable. You can follow June’s descent into worse and worse offenses (though she started out pretty damn bad), while at every step the reader is trapped in her head as she justifies why she is the one in the right, the victim. Will you enjoy a single character? Categorically NO. But you will walk away with a greater understanding of the many failings of the publishing industry and how you might be unconsciously taking part in some of those failings.

R.F. Kuang | Waterstones

But when I read Babel: An Arcane History for the first time last year, I was absolutely floored. It's not the kind of book an author can write for their debut. Such a glaring take on anticolonialism was hated by many. You know who. Not that I need to look at myself even more harshly than I already do, but it made me do that. She’s using the pen name Juniper Song to pretend to be Chinese American. She’s taken new author photos to look more tan and ethnic, but she’s as white as they come. June Hayward, you are a thief and a liar. You’ve stolen my legacy, and now you spit on my grave.” i’ve decided not to include any quotes from the book and talk in general terms with minor details to avoid spoilers (not anything that’s not in the premise, anyway), but i’m still talking about how i felt about different parts of the book, including the middle and end, even though I won’t be talking about what happens in them. so if you want to go in blind, beware. i know this runs the risk of me describing something one way, but then you going and reading it and interpreting a different way, but until it actually comes out and i can drop the ‘extended’ (and hopefully more sophisticated) review, this will have to do.Best Books Set in the 1920s — from Stories That Shimmer with Champagne and Social Change, to Rip-roaring Reads Covering Crime, Colonialism and Beyond. On the other hand, Athena is harder to grasp. You really need to have the whole picture with her, which you only get by reading the book till the end. I loved the way RFK slowly built her character. You only read about her from June's perpective when she's already dead and still she comes through as the main character, not less because June is literally obsessed with her. Well-written toxic friendships are my bread and butter and the one in here was one of my favorites. The way it was dealt with: nothing less of spectacular. I found June's morality to be the most interesting aspect of this book, but the relationship between her and Athena comes in second for sure.

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang - Goodreads Editions of Yellowface by R.F. Kuang - Goodreads

with some personal favourites like ‘the plot,’ ‘a ladder to the sky,’ and ‘kill all your darlings,’ im no stranger to a plot about plagiarism. but what makes this book stand out from the others is its hard hitting commentary about the publishing world. Sustaining the fraud in the eye of the storm requires ever more manic deception – and self-deception. After all, didn’t Juniper simply midwife a far-from-ready draft that might otherwise never have seen daylight? And in the first place, hadn’t Athena once strip-mined sensitive details of Juniper’s personal life for an early short story? And it’s so hard for white writers to catch a break these days… and that’s my final problem with yellowface. it has a decent plot, interesting cast of characters, interesting themes and discussions, but my only feeling on the ending was, ‘…that’s it?’ i know i said i wouldn’t do quotes, but im making an exception for the bit where our narrator says, ‘I’ve written myself into a corner. The first two thirds of the book were a breeze to compose, but what do i do with the ending? Where do I leave my protagonist, now that there’s no clear resolution?’ Which is very meta, because based off the ending, i feel that’s the position rfk was in at that exact point. i can somewhat tell she struggled with where to take the ending and i have more thoughts on why i felt underwhelmed by it, but i guess that’ll be for 2023, for when it's no doubt on all the 'Very Important Books of the Year' lists. for now, i can see myself rereading babel and parts of tpw, but i don’t see myself rereading yellowface. What astounded me most was how legitimately real her voice was. Hats off to Rebecca Kuang. She killed this.Oops. This is very ranty. Anyway, some of the reviewers feel bad for June, but I don't. I think she gets exactly what is coming to her. Bona fide stars’: Victoria De Angelis and Damiano David of Måneskin on stage at Lollapalooza, 2022. Photograph: Scott Legato/Getty Images There are books with characters that have issues, and issue books that have characters. This is the former, so it totally worked for me. I reread this for my book club and am so glad we did a buddy read and live show. This is a book worthy of discussion. It has both blatant and nuanced themes of racism and xenophobia that might go over some reader's heads or might seem too in-your-face for others. A group discussion can help reader's recognize the realism of R.F. Kuang's literary approach and see that even if you don't relate to the content, you still have to understand that it's other people's reality.

Yellowface: A Novel Paperback – Large Print, August 15, 2023 Yellowface: A Novel Paperback – Large Print, August 15, 2023

This book does bring up some interesting points around who gets to tell certain stories and plagiarism.So I don't really feel like we were making progress in this novel because I would not have given any credence to these naysayers. But as evidence threatens June's stolen success, she will discover exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.