This book was not what I expected. After absolutely adoring Babel last year, Yellowface was one of my most anticipated new releases. While I must say I didn’t love this one quite as much, it was still a great novel. 

I have mixed feelings about the nuance of characters. There are no truly good people in this book, which I liked. I expected Athena to be kind of an angel, but she sucked. Without spoilers, that honestly made the ending more satisfying. I will say, I found June’s racism and general awfulness to be rather heavy-handed. She is supposed to represent the class of liberals that are still actively racist yet not so overtly that most people notice. I expected something more like the racism in My Year of Rest and Relaxation, subtle enough that a lot of people come out of that book not even realizing that the main character was actively racist. I also expected that the overtness of her racism would grow throughout the novel like Letty’s did in Babel, but June’s racism was blatant and obvious from page one. I adore when I can feel sympathy for the most awful of characters. This is a huge reason why Ottessa Moshfegh is my favorite author, so I was so excited to have heard people applaud how R.F. Kuang made June sympathetic and understandable while still the most insufferable person on the planet, but honestly, other than her college experience with Athena and during her mental breakdown in the third act, I never really felt bad for her. Sure, she dealt with some shit, but frankly she didn’t suffer much more than the average person- certainly nothing that came even close to making her actions understandable. 

All that said, the book was very enjoyable. It did an excellent job shining a light on the racism in the publishing industry and showing the prevalence and hypocrisy of white feminism. I also appreciated its discussion of cancel culture- it’s pros and cons and how it gets exploited. Also, while the ending was rather predictable, it was quite enjoyable to see the downfall of one of the most detestable characters I’ve ever read. This was a page-turner for sure and I still highly recommend it.