Lilibet Bombshell's Reviews > Yellowface

Dudes, give into the hype surrounding this book, because it’s every bit as good as everyone says it is. This book is the literary equivalent of these addictive little frozen chai milk tea-flavored mochi bites they sell at Trader Joes. I just can’t help but keep putting those morsels into my mouth, and I just couldn’t help but devour this book page by compelling page.

Oh, how I love to loathe a book’s protagonist. What’s more is I love how much I hated just about everyone in this book. They were all awful, save Mrs. Liu. She’s an angel. But otherwise? Each and every other character in this book is either so inconsequential I could dismiss or forget them as easily as June (our protagonist) does or I could just outright think each and every one of them was an absolutely awful person in their own way. And, to my amusement and for the shade of it all, I adored each and every one of them for being the horrible human beings they were.

Because that’s who they are. Human beings. And that’s part of what I took away from this book. We’re all human beings living in the shades of grey, and between cultural diaspora, socioeconomic strata, generational trauma, and social media none of us know how to be genuine anymore or know how to handle people who actually are genuine. There’s a general distrust between each and every one of us here in America, because America runs on individualism and that need to be the one wearing the crown, and white people largely and genuinely don’t know what to make of other cultures where collectivism, trust, and generosity make the world go ‘round. We white people want that feeling for ourselves (I know I do), but most of us aren’t willing to give up our individuality, prestige, and money for such a life. And that’s sad.

The first act of this book upset me greatly, to the point where I was growling and shaking my Kindle because I was so mad. Please don’t mistake this for criticism of the book, because it’s not. This section of the book should make you upset. It should make you mad because you’re reading the process of taking one author’s hard work and stripping away her unique voice only to supplement it with another’s. You see large sections of important historical events get cut from the book for the sake of not triggering readers. Terrified young women become softer. June and her editors essentially vivisect the original author’s manuscript until it becomes a neutered version of the original, all set for proper public consumption. Now it’s not a tour de force piece of historical literary military fiction–it’s just a solid historical military fiction novel. It’s a ghost of the novel it could’ve been. That’s a travesty in and of itself. The fact that June, the original author’s white friend, rebrands herself in order to sell this novel and keeps using absurdly twisted logic to justify her actions is almost an even larger travesty.

This book has so many terrific points to make: About how there’s a difference culturally in how stories are passed down from the old to the young. About how some white people think all Asian people look alike and their names sound alike but never think about how white people all look a lot alike. About how social media is poisonous to everyone, but especially creative souls. About cancel culture, how easy it is to be canceled for something that happened years and years ago and how you can never recover once that happens but how men still always bounce back quicker from scandals than any woman does. How fast the news cycle runs and the pressure to publish or perish doesn’t stay in academia but extends into the publishing industry as well, and how important it is for authors to be firm and specific when it comes to negotiations with film studios over film rights.

You make your own hell. You make your own prison. June did both of these things the moment she decided to take her dead friend’s manuscript and make it hers. It hems her in by shame, greed, anxiety, and fear. She sees no way out and she definitely doesn’t know if she wants out. The only way she’s going away is if she’s forced. There’s that Protestant Work Ethic wrapped in vice.

I don’t think I need to tell you to pick this up. It should be a foregone conclusion. It’s sharp, biting, shady, witty, and will make you angry three ways to Sunday. It’s worth every minute you spend on it. You won’t be able to put it down.

I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: 5 Star Read/AAPI Fiction/Literary Fiction/OwnVoices/Satire