Yellowface: Book Review

Yellowface, by R.F. Kuang, has a pulse; a heartbeat, that, like a Kylie Minogue song, has an audible “Padam, Padam.” Its beat can be heard and felt within the first few chapters of the book.

It’s also a book that has a mission, and you’ll feel happy to have hitched a ride the entire time.

Yellowface delivers everything an audience could ask for in a book. It does the dirty work of getting into your feelings and making us feel “some type of way,” it makes you feel for the main character, makes you feel as if you are a part of the in-crowd as it pertains to journalism and literature, establishes a plot that hooks the reader’s curiosity from start to finish, and so much more…

What is Yellowface about?

Yellowface is fiction about an author that repurposes and fully fleshes out the writing of a friend, who also happens to be an author, that has recently passed away. The main character is an author who, as a white woman, must deal with the cultural backlash and “Twitterati” that comes with publishing works on Chinese culture; of which is secretly half written by her deceased Asian friend.

The book is a monologue that dives into the debate of what it means to publish literary works on other cultures if you are not actually of that particular race. R.F. Kuang constantly puts in writing what we “are all thinking.” It also seems to have an interesting set of influences which are revealed in some of the sentences, words, and literary callouts.

For example, even before we get to the last third of the book, where the author mentions Ayn Rand, it’s clear that there is at least some type of “Atlas Shrugged” feel to it (even though the messaging isn’t at all the same). It’s consistent and has that aforementioned “heartbeat” of an Ayn Rand book. R.F. Kuang seems to also be a fan of French Philosophy, as both Simone De Beauvoir and Jean Baudrillard are mentioned, and she even manages to use the word “simulacrum,” which is impressive.

Not only does Kuang bring her characters on stage for us to see, as opposed to laying out boring descriptions. She draws out our feelings as readers with an effort in her scenes that mimic how we would feel in real life. For example, I genuinely felt for the main character when she chased down a coworker and grabbed her shoulders to get a look at her — thinking that she was either hallucinating or seeing her dead friend. In other words, her “descriptions” are constantly in the characters’ actions or in the scenes themselves, as opposed to characters mundanely describing how they feel. This results in authentic emotions as a reader.

And of much importance, the plot is also very captivating and suspenseful in itself. It doesn’t drag on but rather takes you to the finish line in full swing.

I’d say this book is a grand slam, but there aren’t enough people on base to describe how many home runs it actually hit. Are the classics “better”? Will this book become a classic? I’ll just say that if you are reading nothing but classics right now, you’ll definitely want to read this one too — at the same time; or even drop what you’re reading and pick this one up ASAP.