yellowface

people who relate to june hayward, scare me.

this book has one of the most annoying and insufferable narrators i've ever read. yet, it's intentional. 

r.f. kuang's yellowface feels like a fictional manifestation after the drama that circulated her other book, babel, where a white reader gave the novel a poor review because it "made her feel bad for being white," because it accurately represents the nature of this book. 

the narrator of this novel, june hayward, is the perfect example of that one white friend we've all had at one point in our lives who has a raging case of foot in their mouth syndrome. hopefully we've all elevated ourselves from such bottom of the barrel friends. 

with that being said, june is an awful person. the more frustrated june made me, the more i had to applaud kuang for her ability to inhabit every micro-aggressive bitch i have ever met in my life. her ignorance was truly comical, making me laugh in exasperation because although she is a fictional character, there are so many misinformed people in the world who honestly and wholeheartedly think the same way. the levels of ignorance that june exemplifies should be impossible to achieve, and yet i know people just like her. 

in the novel, june has no issues censoring a historical event of chinese tragedy in order to make the story more palatable to a white audience. she caters to her own self-interests as a white woman rather than provide an accurate representation in order to maximize her profits and not exclude the demographic that she just so happens to belong to. overall, june's selfishness is a catalyst for all the major plot points in the story. her lack of empathy is what leads to her stealing athena's manuscript in the first place. she is the face of white "feminism" in its worst and ugliest form.

speaking of athena, her character is interesting. some have claimed that she's a self-insertion by r.f. kuang, but i'm not really sure. i don't know much about r.f. kuang as an individual. athena is written to be very flawed and almost unlikable. if it is true, kuang did not compliment herself through her fictional presence. aside from athena's many literary achievements, she is portrayed as pretentious, condescending, and downright cold. while i'm aware that june is an extremely unreliable narrator, not everything she details about athena can be chalked up to a skewed perspective. athena is most definitely a victim in this book, she wasn't perfect either.

on a different note, this book also provides an interesting behind the scenes on the publishing industry. although i have no way of fact checking kuang's accuracy, if it shares any resemblance to the real world, it's concerning. corporate multiculturalism is truly a disease. 

lastly to address the ending of the book. i felt that it was hit or miss and i'm still unsure where i stand on that spectrum. while the concept of a dead asian girl haunting their white perpetrator entices me, the ending seemed a bit anti-climactic. with that being said, i didn't need june to have a redemption arc in order to feel satisfied and in actuality i wish that she had reached an even worse demise, an ending that she couldn't come back from. however, there are also many public figures who face a career-ending scandal, but eventually come back to the spotlight. despite being fictional, june isn't any different. 

in totality, i found yellowface to be really entertaining. although there are a few heavy themes mentioned in the trigger warnings, it's a relatively easy and simple read. however, as i've described, the main character is extremely frustrating so be prepared.