Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

How often do you love a book and hate the main character?

For me, I usually have to like the characters in a book to want to read it, but somehow Kuang makes me invest in this story while HATING the main character June Hayward/Juniper Song.

June is insanely jealous of her frenemy Athena Liu’s success as a writer.

When she gets the chance to steal her manuscript and pass it off as her own, June’s career takes off.

It’s not her fault that people think she’s Asian since “her” book is about WWI Chinese laborers and she promotes it under the name Juniper Song (her middle name).

What follows is a look at the publishing industry, cultural appropriation–who should write the story, racism, diversity, and the power of social media.

June tells her story and sometimes I  forget to hate her, but then the next sentence reminds me.

Totally different from her sci-fi/fantasy books, Babeland The Poppy Wars, but once again Kuang has written a fast-paced book that I could not put down.