Review: Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

**Contains some minor spoilers**

The internet has been going crazy over the whole Man vs. Bear debate. However, there was another debate that came out of the other debate. A TikToker asked Black Women “who would you rather be left alone in a conference room? A white man or a white woman. ” I didn’t even have to read the comments to know what they answer would be. Let’s face it, white women have a history of not being very good allies to our sisters of color. Just look at the last two presidential elections. If you are still shocked by black women’s answer to above question then, read Yellowface because it is a description as to why. June went to Yale with Athena Liu. Athena comes from money and is beautiful and gets her first writing deal before they graduate. She is also Chinese American. June on the other hand struggles to find her voice and has to tutor privilege high schoolers to pay the bills. Meanwhile, Athena has had nothing but success since they graduated. She has released multiple best sellers and now a netflix deal. June’s one book barely sold and her editor and agent ignore her calls. Athena and June go out to celebrate Athena’s Netflix deal then end up going to Athena’s apartment. They get more drunk and make pancakes, which Athena chokes on and dies. Before she dies, Athena shows June her finished manuscript. No one else has seen it or even knows what it’s about. Athena was very secretive about her process or what she was writing about. June takes the manuscript and is instantly drawn to it. As good as it is, it is a first draft so June decides to make some changes to it and then sends it off to submission as her own work. She convinces herself that Athena wouldn’t want it published as it was and she did so much work on it that it’s her book too.

She publishes book under her a new name Juniper Song. Her first and real name. She is finally gets all the acclaim and fame that she always craved and felt she deserved. She is convinced that her lack of success wasn’t because she wasn’t talented but because she was a minority. These days, everyone is looking for diversity after all. She is one of those people that would say with a straight face that she can’t be racist because she had a black friend or in this case an Asian face. Since the story is told in the first person, we get her thoughts in their uncensored glory. How she dislikes Chinese food and afraid to go to Chinatown without her mace. How she was also jealous of Athena and never really liked her. Of course, she is found out but instead of coming clean she just digs in deeper. And for a while she gets away with it because people want to believe white women and since she was making a lot of people a lot of money they kept protecting her. That was until she uses a old prompt of Athena’s and scandal all over again. At this point she is much in her victim era that she has convinced herself that she has done nothing wrong and she’s being bullied. Very much like a certain Author of kids wizard’s and her transphobic comments but I digress.

I got to tell you, as a white woman myself, I had moments reading this where I thought “not all White woman are like this” or “I’m not like this” because I really don’t want think of myself like this but honestly that’s exactly what June would say about herself. She identified as liberal and a democrat. She liked to point out how she started a scholarship in Athena’s name in the same sentence as she denigrated the Black Lives Movement. Any criticism of her was nothing but jealous, SJW looking to score points on the internet despite that fact that they were right. She did steal Athena’s work and passed it off as her own, It really made me think more retrospectively about my own relationships and yeah it’s uncomfortable but need to be down. I don’t truly think I am anyway as bad as June but I do recognize I have my own work to do to be a better ally. I do hope that other white readers do the same too. I did enjoyed the ending because even though June got caught, it was left open to how she could and most likely make a comeback because who doesn’t love a redemption story. Especially for a young white woman.

2 thoughts on “Review: Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

  1. Pingback: Beth’s Favorite Books of 2024!!! | 2 Women, So Many Books

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