Audiobook Review – Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, Narrated by Helen Laser (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Length: 8 hours and 39 minutes
Publisher:‎ HarperAudio
Release Date: May 16, 2023
ASIN: B0BCDD8BYC
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Borrowed Audiobook from Library
Rating: 3/5 stars

“Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.

So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.

So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.

But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed this on audiobook from the library.

Thoughts: This was okay. This is different from Kuang’s other books and is a contemporary fiction about a writer who steals her dead friend’s book and passes it off as her own. What follows is a dark comedy of success, guilt, and the gray areas in the publishing industry.

Some of this is darkly funny and some of this is sad. I am not a huge fan of books where people are constantly selfish and trying to undercut each other. This book really delves into the nasty and mean side of social media and how people can somewhat lazily destroy other people’s lives via this medium.

While the look into the publishing industry was intriguing, I hope that what happens in this book is exaggerated and not completely accurate. In general I found the way the main protagonist, June, hangs onto everyone else’s opinion to be sad and immature.

I guess I just didn’t find this funny, as much as a sad commentary on what the publishing world and social media have become. I also didn’t enjoy how the book just ended with very little closure.

My Summary (3/5): Overall, I could have taken or left this. I didn’t enjoy this nearly as much as Kuang’s Poppy War series. I will admit this delves into the same areas of gray morality that the Poppy War delves into, however, this series is just too mean and I didn’t like how open the ending was.