Scarily realistic...

I definitely think YELLOWFACE is one of those books that is unputdownable and horrifyingly believable. But I don't know. In a lot ways, I think it could have been a lot better. And I know it's hard writing books etc., but something in it left me yearning for more. People unfamiliar with the industry will certainly be drawn in by its idiosyncrasies, but to me? Everything was "old news," even if was fictional and not actually news. (I can think of real life Twitter events that even perfectly fits

June getting a sales boost because right-wing people championed her book as standing up to cancel culture...woof

.)

I don't know. YELLOWFACE just didn't really scratch the itch, narrative wise. I don't disagree that what Kuang has written about the industry is realistic, but I also felt like YELLOWFACE could have been better. I felt like it was drowned in so many opinions that it took away from the meat of the story -- not the publishing commentary and meta bits, but the actual story of the terrible things June is doing. I guess I wanted it to be more thriller, more horror, but there was so much publishing drama that it just felt like I was in 2019 again. 

I also feel like the actual bits about yellowface, not publishing in general, could have been stronger. I feel like Kuang tries to do something with the complexity of Athena, but ultimately, all of the nuance of the Asian characters introduced is kind of lost, mired in June's racism. The white racist perspective rendered a lot of Kuang's attempts at introducing an Asian perspective confusing and easily misconstrued. I really don't know what she was trying to say with Athena (or maybe not trying to say anything at all???), even though I fully understand the parts about Athena's character that Kuang puts forward. I think it's ultimately just really hard to tackle non-monolithic topics when you're writing from a racist perspective, but I still wish that Kuang did it better. Somehow.