#also beware bc there are 'mit' jumpscares in there

[tumblasha]

book review: yellowface by r.f. kuang

overall rating: ★★★★★/5

literally it was so good; i couldn't put it down once i opened the ebook on the plane. originally i was reading the vegetarian by han kang, but the ebook download didn't finish (it ended suddenly on a random page), so i started this one!!

synopsis: (cw: anti-asian racism) athena liu is a very famous author. her college friend june hayward is not a famous author (her first book flopped big time). athena suddenly dies and june finds athena's latest unfinished manuscript. after various edits (including to her own name, now "juniper song"), she publishes that manuscript as her own. the story follows the rest of june's story with this new book

this book was literally so good. every other sentence was just this white woman saying some microaggression (author makes it v obvious that she's wrong in a funny way). i was on my flight back home and i just read this book for ~3hrs w/o stopping. kinda feel bad for the guy sitting next to me who saw me make this "shocked but about to start laughing" face i always make lmao

i've always liked kuang's writing! i read the poppy war by her, and it was really good too (started the second book that trilogy but school kept me busy) ((might re-read))

one little thing is that i saw this tweet a month ago that said "it sounds like kuang has an agenda and is just using these characters as a vessel" which doesn't make sense since that's all that fiction writing ... is. alas, sometimes june acted so comically racist that i felt that tweet bounce around in my head, but there's nothing we can really do about that

pls read! and support ur local libraries. this review was sponsored by the libby app /j