This book addresses numerous deep-seated societal issues in an accessible manner. I haven’t read through a book of this length so quickly in years. I don't feel like I could hate on either Athena or June. Athena has a lot of influence on our main narrator and other characters in the book, but we only ever know her from the memories and impressions of the people who know her when she was alive. What fascinating is the way she mined ideas for her writing, which seemed to be cold-hearted and unempathetic. She carried on interviews, many writers do that, but she never paid tribute to her source of inspiration or information, interviewed people are always caught of guard to see their vulnerable and painful stories and words printed without their permission. She did this even with the people she is the closest to, like her mom, or June, or ex-boyfriend. Athena's brand is something that sells, she is ethnically Chinese, so people perceive her as far as her looks go even though she barely speak any Mandarin.

June, our narrator, is deeply human—confused, greedy, jealous, and flawed. Her actions are undeniably wrong; she stole her friend’s legacy instead of properly applying to be a co-author (if that was even an option). Despite numerous allegations, she never confessed, opting instead to work behind the scenes—writing, researching, polishing, and finishing the novel, as much as she could make the book hers. But it's also true that she did write a significant part of the book, she did do her research, and she did attempt at Mandarin and her struggle visits to Rockville and Chinatown, maybe not good enough, but not nothing, and the novel (with much of her contribution in it) did move Mr.Lee, whose uncle was one of the CLC (he probably thought she belongs to the community, though). June's biggest flaw is her desire to live the literary dream despite not being a naturally talented storyteller.

June justified her actions with how rigged publishing industry is, it's a male-dominant, racist, and unfair, it's where your literary work is chosen to be a winner and worthy of their marketing budget not because you are the most talented writer, but more about what people want to read and see at that point in time, and when it happens that readers want more diversity on the bookshelves, what a white girl like June fumes about and wants to put on pages are simply never good enough. She's already not good enough because of something she cannot choose for herself, race. And she really believes it. This does not excute her action, though.

But given that the novel is June's original work, the question will be: can June write about Chinese history if she is not born in the country, but did the work to understand it? Can she really understand it just by doing her research? Maybe it's a question for readers to judge, as we should not limit any writers from any topics, we should only "critique a work on the grounds of literary quality, and its representations of history". But again, can readers be fair judges?, because if you really think about it, it is really imaginable that the same story be viewed differently if it is written by authors of different backgrounds. Isn't it just easier to trust and feel comfortable reading a Chinese person writing about the Chinese Labor Corps, then to read the same story written by a white person? And it understandably is so, but it does not make this topic any less complicated, and it's not the right way to go about it.

We explore topic of racism, but also reverse racism, the cyber bullying, and the ugly nature of publishing. "Racism is bad, but you can still send death threats to Karens". And we see how social media is really realer than real life. Candice is a really interesting character too, I just love what she said to June during the confrontation. And the ending is good, June has developed into a person who I believe will survive longer in that industry, she got the gut and the thick face and she could write good enough.