I have been reading and liking a lot of posts from fellow bloggers about their reading year in 2023. I often do such a post myself except that my reading and blogging last year was pretty woeful and I don’t want to depress myself – comparison is never good for self-esteem! Life just got in the way in 2023, but no matter. I’ve also been reading a lot of blogs about, and been receiving a lot of emails from various newsletters and platforms I subscribe to, exhorting me to set my reading goals for the year. I still have a very busy six months ahead of me with education and family commitments so I’m not going to do anything that might make me feel like I’m somehow falling short. Last year, I set myself a challenge to read one long-neglected book from my shelves per month. I was doing pretty well up until the summer…
So, this year, I am going to set myself the same challenge, because I think it’s a good one. Plus my husband has started making noises about thinning out our book collection, not a bad idea in itself, but it does make my blood run a little cold. It is hard to justify buying more books however, when you have very many unread ones lying around. For January, I’m just going to set myself the task of finishing all the books I currently have on the go! If you glance at my Goodreads profile you will note that there are currently SIX(!), and at least three of them have been there for a very long time. So, I am going to try and get these read by the end of the month. A kind of clearing the decks before signs of spring and feelings of fresh starts commence in February. Did you know that in Ireland spring begins officially on the 1st of February? I don’t think it’s any warmer there or anything, but I visited my in-laws in Dublin for new year and I can confirm that daffodils were indeed blooming in their garden! The government has even instituted a new bank holiday in 2023 for St Brigid’s Day, to mark this traditional Gaelic festival welcoming the spring.
So, in the spirit of catching up and clearing out before spring, I want to start my reviewing year with a book that I read some months ago and which I have been meaning to write about ever since, but haven’t quite got around to. Yellowface was one of a few much-hyped novels of last year and I listened to it on audio over the summer. As well as being a great read, it is a complex and brilliantly constructed novel which explores many themes and ideas.
The central character is June Hayward, a writer who is struggling to make her mark and whose agent and publisher are losing patience with her (lack of) output. June has a friend, Athena Liu, whose fortunes are very much in the ascendant. The two women were at Yale together and in her writing career, Athena has achieved everything that June desires, both commercial success and literary acclaim, making her a wealthy writer, a rare thing. To make matters worse (for June), Athena is beautiful, popular and socially skilled. June and Athena do not have a close relationship, rather they share some mutual friends, but on a night out to celebrate Athena having sold the television rights for her latest book, the two women find themselves drunk at Athena’s luxury New York apartment. On a whim, Athena decides to cook pancakes, but in a freak accident, chokes to death in front of June’s very eyes. In the chaotic aftermath of the incident, June finds herself alone in Athena’s apartment. Looking around her study she comes across the completed first draft of another novel, which Athena has produced in her trademark fashion – on a manual typewriter. Thus, no traceable digital copy.
The temptation is too much for June and after reading it she decides that fate has decreed that she will be the one to knock it into shape, to turn it into a publishable piece. June works on the draft day and night for several weeks and by the end of the process feels the novel is as much hers as Athena’s. She sends it to her agent and the book is eventually published to great acclaim under the pen-name, Juniper Song, distancing it from June’s previous (mediocre) work, and adding an air of authenticity to the subject-matter – the unsung contribution of Chinese prisoners to the first world war effort in Europe. With her Asian heritage this would have been a natural choice of subject for Athena, but less so for June.
June revels in the success of the book and all appears to be going well until she begins to be trolled on social media by someone masquerading as the ghost of Athena Liu claiming that June stole the work, accusing her of cultural appropriation and even suggesting June may have had a hand in Athena’s death. Events quickly spiral out of control and the rest of the novel proceeds at pace as June tries to uncover who is behind the fake social media account. As doubts about her spread she must face into some very public challenges as well as private demons. At first, the accusations against June about cultural appropriation (the ‘yellowface’ of the title) seem pretty clear-cut, but the author is also unafraid of challenging the publishing industry’s fickleness and the rank hypocrisy that can play out in social media.
There is only really one way this story can end and yet the author still manages to make it quite shocking and twisty. It is a genuine page-turner and I was on the edge of my metaphorical seat throughout. Rebecca Kuang is an extraordinary young talent; she left China with her parents when she was just four years old, and the family moved to America. She won a scholarship to Cambridge, did an MSc at Oxford, has a PhD from Yale and had already published four novels before Yellowface. She is only 27. Reading her bio you can sort of empathise with June Hayward!
Highly recommended.
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