Rediscovering My Reading Passion: Journeying through Rebecca F Kuang’s emotional new thriller ‘YELLOWFACE’
I need to be honest. Even though I’m an English teacher with a passion for reading – it’s been a while since I’ve picked up a book – no excuses – I just got out of the habit. I’m the first to nag my students about the benefits of reading. It’s so beneficial, not only educationally but it helps you to learn new things, relax and get lost in a new world. I re-found my passion whilst shopping for holiday books. Rather than the usual murder mystery and “easy reads“ I decided to go outside the box and pick something different and I’m so glad I did!! So here it is – my first book review – hopefully with many more to come !!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which I picked out as a holiday read as it was amazon’s “book of the year“, Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang.
June Hayward and Athena Liu, who graduated from the same program, were supposed to become successful authors with lucrative careers. Athena, a queer Asian American, is a success. But June, who isn’t Asian, is not. After witnessing Athena die in a freak accident, June decides to take Athena’s just-finished manuscript about unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during WWI as her own, editing it and submitting the book as her own work. June publishes this under the name Juniper Song, along with a seemingly ethnic author photo. After the publication becomes a New York Times bestseller, June has to grapple with messages threatening to reveal her true identity and Athena’s shadow. June figures out how far she is willing to go to protect what she believes she deserves.
My thoughts….
On a cursory and initial glance, this seems like another story about stealing someone’s work and whether one can get away with it. I can even tell you the book that came to my mind that had this basic plot. But, to reduce this novel to just that would be ignoring everything, this literary thriller is so clever at capturing, from the excellent showing of cultural appropriation to revealing the isolating and complicated difficulties in the fiercely competitive book publishing world.
Highly recommended!!
Available for purchase HERE
Amy x
