Yellowface

I read this for a book club and that's the only reason I persevered. I was gripped by the first few chapters and then lost interest when it became repetitive and slow. I didn't really understand or get to know any of the characters well enough to maintain interest.
Great narration!

Funny and engaging. The narration was fabulous.

So what’s the buzz about? I feel a need to know, and set forth via my XigXag audio app (with read-along text if I want it).

Having just seen Christopher Nolan’s very impressive Oppenheimer two days before I start reading, I’m amused with deep appreciation of a comparison between an unpublished manuscript about WW1 and Nolan’s Dunkirk. This comparison of the novel’s structure with Nolan’s multi-threaded multi-layered auteurship works well for me.

The book’s publishers already spoil the plot. If you’re thinking of reading the book you probably know the plot outline pretty well or can easily find it if that’s what you need. I won’t elaborate.

The slide of our protagonist’s morality is breath-taking. Her style is breathlessly urgent and blind to her own appalling failings. Self-justification abounds.

Rebecca F Kuang, as Yellowface’s author, certainly is not blind and not justifying her protagonist’s actions, but using them to excoriate the publishing industry and the wider society it serves, also challenging us about cultural appropriation and raising the question of whether an author can write about cultural experiences not their own. (Think American Dirt, which is passingly mentioned.)

Publishing is an industry driven by marketing. Here is protagonist Juniper Song’s reflections on an aspect of book marketing. It’s an interesting read for someone like me, who suspects this sort of thing but has never had it explained.
“I didn’t know book boxes were such a major industry, but apparently subscription services like Readaholics send books out in cute crates with accompanying merchandise to tens of thousands of customers a month. The Readaholics Book Box edition of The Last Front will have special deckled edges, and ship out along with a cruelty-free vegan leather tote bag, a collectible key chain featuring various jade Chinese zodiac animals (for a special fee you can take a personality quiz online to determine your zodiac affinity), and a selection of sustainably sourced, single-origin green teas from Taiwan.”

It’s been a bright and unusual start with some possibilities of this veering into other genres such as crime. But from halfway in, I’m starting to flag. Will this self-indulgent lying self-delusionist ever get her comeuppance?

There’s an authorial shift of gear, my interest renews and I make it to the end, reasonably satisfied with having read this buzzy book. I get the cultural politics I think, learn some history, learn about the struggles of authors. But it is not a book whose sensitivities speak to me strongly.

Really enjoyed this story. Very cleverly written! It brings up so many questions of fame, success, cancel culture and the publishing industry, and challenges the reader to draw their own conclusions. I was constantly flitting between empathy and dislike for the protagonist. The narration was great and really captured the voice of the main character.