Hi folks and welcome to the Book of the Month. It's Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. OMG this book is amazing. Okay let me be a bit honest/upfront before going on: after reading this book, I read a bit more about the author's life that robbed me somehow and made me think maybe it should not be her telling this story. Bias is an extraordinary thing. I had read this book and was on such a high after reading, and it was a little deflated when I found out more about her. None of what I read is awful or cruel; just some bit about her choices that helps me understand how she chose to paint some characters (ahem the straight white men character(s)). It's a writer's job to create nuance to characters and give them depth but....alright, imma leave that for now. The most important thing is that this is an EXTRAORDINARY book. I cannot say that enough. Oops I'm way ahead of myself.
Yellowface tells the story of a failing author who steals an unpublished manuscript of her late friend. Here is how it really went down. A white author and an Asian author were frenemies; the Asian author, Athena Liu, was a literary darling, while the white one, Juniper Hayward (June, Junie, June Song etc) was mediocre at best, or at least that's how her debut novel was received. Athena was THE star and had everything going for her--heck she just inked a Netflix deal--so much that June started to get envious. So when June witnesses Athena's death in a weird accident, she does what anyone would do in the face of such tragedy (if you are a weirdo white basic babe) and steals Athena's unpublished manuscript. Athena was notoriously tight lipped about her projects and she was no different with this experimental novel on the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I. June steals it, polishes it (who really knows how much work she put into it except what she tells us), sends it to her agent, gets rebranded as Juniper Song (with an ambiguously ethnic author photo to boot), and makes it big. End of story, right? WRONG. June can't get away from Athena's shadow. Plus newly brought to light evidence threatens to expose her. This story uncovers that, June's desperation to get past this, and so much more.
