I finished Yellowface, here are my rambling thoughts
TL;DR: This is a fun book if you're a very terminally online person and mildly enjoy internet discourse. While not intentional, this book serves as an excellent guideline for young creatives especially people should navigate the internet.
LEARN TO IGNORE THE DISCOURSE
Even though it's a quick read, I could only bring myself to finish it when I was in long commutes or trips so...it took waaay longer than expected!
Reading this book was a weird experience because I was somewhat expsoed to criticisms of RF Kuang while before approaching with her work. It's something I'd advice you to avoid.
That said, it's very hard to shake off the very obvious comparisons between Athena and Rebecca. I don't think it's a crime writing a self-insert however, it makes the book come off as a self defense essay which frequently broke my immersion.
At times I felt like the self-insert nature of Athena's character meant RF was straining to find flaws to write into her. With the exception of using June's own trauma, I struggled to see what exactly was so damning about Athena using the real war veteran's stories. It just came off as a form of primary research for me given that Athena was taking notes. I had assumed that this was part of June's unreliable narrator stint and just more of her vilifying Athena to justify her own wrongdoings.
With regards to Athena it's hard to separate the art from the artist making, Yellowface a meta defense against a variety of critiques Kuang has received in her career so far, which adds to the feeling of reading a string of angry blogposts or tweets rather than a novel.
June was simultaneously a fun and agonising character to follow. She stubbornly refuses advice offered to her at every single turn. On top of her editors enabling more of her toxic actions and thoughts. Following her unravelling as she continues to self-sabotage was cathartic, despite the unsatisfying Candice reveal and the subsequent lecture killing the last act's momentum.
I think you see her full cruelty and immaturity on display when she's tutoring young ambitious writers, trying to humble them and placing herself above despite the already established uneven power dynamics with her occupying a teacher role and is completely unconcerned with the feelings of her students.
The racism seen in June is the type of racism one could expect to encounter in YUPPIE/young progressive spaces. Where people are ready to weaponise any facet of their identity to advance their career or social standing. It's a very dehumanising environment to be in and being in June's headspace was very jarring as a result. She was quick to overlook the blessings she had in life while rapidly dehumanising her friend as jealously has clearly cemented her thoughts long before the events unfold.
Yellowface is only concerned with the plight of Asian-Americans in White America while ignoring other demographics in the US and the struggles they face trying to enter the same world. Additionally, it forgoes any class analysis which I found to be very frustrating. The publishing industry is elitist and employs gatekeeping tactics in more than one way, which Yellowface just doesn't explore. While it very briefly touches on the concept of social capital but only in a way that exists in YUPPIE circles. This harkens back to my point about self-inserting, while it's not always a weakness in storytelling I can't help but wonder how much of the class analysis was limited because it would involve putting Athena, and by extension Kuang, into the very critical spotlight.
The book mostly feels very predictable, which isn't necessarily a negative. With the exception of the ending which I wasn't very fond of. I find that one of the main criticisms of Yellowface, that being the writing style, doesn't really apply here. Part of why this was a very easy and fast read was because it rather appropriately comes off as a blogpost. As ramifications unfold, June's own mental state becomes jittery which is perfectly reflected within the prose of the book.
I wonder if readers that aren't terminally online, nor spent hours upon hours scouring various online communities for Discourse TM sake, would appreciate this book. So it's understandable to see why this book was a massive success within younger demographics. People that grew up watching James Charles getting cancelled, memed on, and then uncancelled, and then follow-up cancelled. Or hearing tales about how artist of the week is actually cancelled or tyring to follow the publishing industries own series of drama in the late 2010s.
Yellowface masterfully showcases that the publishing industry does more than just publishing books. It turns authors into products to be marketed, their identity and living experiences get minted and sanded down for commercial appeal and branding consistency. Through Athena readers might understand how Kuang feels pressured to market herself as a Chinese-American author and how that branding might inform a narrow set of themes she explores, a pattern reflected in her bibliography so far.
On the other hand, June's anxiety lies in her realisation that she cannot compete in the same marketplace. Yet the novel makes it clear that she is without opportunities. June repeatedly is offered a variety of avenues out that she regularly rejects. This contrast raises questions on whether Athena was ever afforded comparative options. Is the publishing industry willing to view Athena as anything other than "that one chick that writes Asian stories?".
As far as I'm aware via the internet, no other part of the world expects or demand creatives to tokenise themselves to such a humiliating degree. Even minorities, whether they're religious or ethnic, don't do that. It always feels like a distinctly Western/American/cosmopolitan thing to me.
I find it very annoying that Yellowface leaves the question of "Own Voices" unresolved, despite taking up a significant amount of space in the first quarter of the book. Some might argue no story is to be gatekept as long as one does "proper research" and is "respective" but the book doesn't present what either of these two actions look like. It probably might serve as a guide for what NOT to do instead but June's actions are so cartoonishly extreme that it doesn't answer the Own Voices debate.
