I truly think a lot of RF Kuang haters are just frustrated white people who can’t stand that an Asian woman has brains, creativity, and challenges colonialism and whiteness in every one of her novels. She doesn’t fit the “lotus woman” stereotype they’re so used to. She is beautiful and soft spoken yet opinionated and funny, does research, and still writes novels as a second career. Meanwhile, prolific white authors like Sanderson (whose work I also enjoy, no hate to him) are idolised without the same double standards.
Of course, not every book is for everyone. But its the specific criticisms she faces : “too pretentious,” “too intellectual,” “spells things out too much,” “villainises white people,” and now “her books are written by IA”... come on. That’s not just about taste, it’s rooted in racialised stereotypes about who gets to be seen as intellectual, complex, or authoritative.
It’s not the writing that bothers them, it’s who’s writing it.