R.F. Kuang’s ability to write books that make readers genuinely uncomfortable while keeping them completely unable to stop is something I find both impressive and slightly alarming. Yellowface makes you complicit in the perspective of a narrator who is stealing from a dead woman, and it does it so well that you’re deep into the book before you notice how much you’ve been rationalising alongside her.

The Premise

June Hayward is a white author whose debut was a modest critical nothing. Athena Liu is her friend and professional nemesis — Chinese-American, critically acclaimed, with a luminous career that June has watched from the side-lines with a mixture of admiration and corrosive envy. When Athena dies in a freak accident and June is present, June takes the only existing copy of Athena’s next manuscript. She tells herself it would have been lost otherwise. She tells herself she will only look. She tells herself a lot of things.

The novel she publishes — a World War I story about the Chinese Labour Corps — becomes the most successful book of her career. And then the questions start.

June as an Unreliable Narrator

Kuang has said in interviews that June is constructed as a specific type rather than a unique individual, and that is exactly how she functions. Every rationalisation June makes is one that has been made, out loud, by real people defending real acts of appropriation. Every piece of logic she deploys to maintain her self-image as a good person is recognisable. The horror of the book is not that June is monstrous but that she is so ordinary — so thoroughly a product of the industry’s incentive structures, so skilled at using progressive language to protect herself.

The social media dynamics that follow the book’s publication are rendered with particular precision. Kuang clearly understands how discourse cycles function, how accusations spread and are absorbed and strategically deployed, and she satirises the whole machinery without offering anyone in it a clean exit.

The Industry Under the Microscope

Publishers, agents, publicists, the literary media — everyone gets the treatment. Yellowface is not gentle in its analysis of how the industry uses writers of colour when convenient and discards them otherwise, and how the language of diversity becomes its own kind of cover. The satire is furious and controlled, which is the right combination.

Why YA Readers Will Love This

Readers who love Kuang’s fantasy work and followed her into this contemporary satire will find the same ferocity of argument paired with completely different formal tools. The first-person unreliable narration is gripping in a way that pure polemic couldn’t achieve; you understand the industry’s failures more viscerally because you’ve been made to experience them from inside a mind that benefits from them.

For YA readers interested in the mechanics of publishing — who gets to tell whose stories, who gets the advance, who gets the benefit of the doubt on social media — this is required reading. It is also compulsively readable in the way of the best thrillers, and the discomfort it produces is entirely the point.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Yellowface about? June Hayward is a white author whose debut was a modest critical nothing. When her friend Athena Liu — Chinese-American, critically acclaimed — dies in a freak accident while June is present, June takes the only copy of Athena’s next manuscript. The novel June subsequently publishes — a World War I story about the Chinese Labour Corps — becomes the most successful book of her career. The review describes it as a book that ‘makes you complicit in the perspective of a narrator who is stealing from a dead woman, so well that you’re deep into the book before you notice how much you’ve been rationalising alongside her.’

How does June Hayward function as an unreliable narrator? The review notes Kuang has said June is ‘constructed as a specific type rather than a unique individual, and that is exactly how she functions.’ Every rationalisation June makes ‘has been made, out loud, by real people defending real acts of appropriation. Every piece of logic she deploys to maintain her self-image as a good person is recognisable.’ The horror is described as ’not that June is monstrous but that she is so ordinary — so thoroughly a product of the industry’s incentive structures, so skilled at using progressive language to protect herself.’

What does Yellowface satirise about the publishing industry? Publishers, agents, publicists, and the literary media all ‘get the treatment — Yellowface is not gentle in its analysis of how the industry uses writers of colour when convenient and discards them otherwise, and how the language of diversity becomes its own kind of cover.’ The social media dynamics following the book’s publication are described as ‘rendered with particular precision — Kuang clearly understands how discourse cycles function, how accusations spread and are absorbed and strategically deployed.’ The satire is described as ‘furious and controlled.’

How does Yellowface compare to Kuang’s fantasy work? The review addresses Kuang’s existing readership: ‘readers who love her fantasy work and followed her into this contemporary satire will find the same ferocity of argument paired with completely different formal tools.’ The first-person unreliable narration ‘is gripping in a way that pure polemic couldn’t achieve — you understand the industry’s failures more viscerally because you’ve been made to experience them from inside a mind that benefits from them.’ The discomfort is described as ’entirely the point.’

Why is Yellowface recommended for YA readers interested in publishing? The review positions it as ‘required reading for YA readers interested in the mechanics of publishing — who gets to tell whose stories, who gets the advance, who gets the benefit of the doubt on social media.’ It is described as ‘compulsively readable in the way of the best thrillers,’ which distinguishes it from comparable critique-of-publishing fiction that opts for polemic over narrative. The novel’s subject — the Chinese Labour Corps of World War I — is itself a story of erased history.

Further Reading from Authoritative Sources

  • Yellowface — Wikipedia’s Yellowface article provides publication details and context, helping readers understand the novel’s reception and its place within Kuang’s broader writing career.
  • R.F. Kuang — Wikipedia’s author page covers Kuang’s background and the broader arc of her published work.