Yellowface is a story about a brilliant writer, Juniper, who lacks ideas. She is cursed with a very successful writer friend, Athena, who churns out best sellers like it’s no big thang. June and Athena are hanging out one evening, drinking and laughing and actually acting like the friends they sorta kinda are, when Athena chokes to death on a pandan-flavoured pancake. Though June is a bit rattled by this experience, she decides in teh moment to steal Athena’s latest, secret manuscript before leaving the apartment.
June then reads Athena’s work, polishes it, and publishes it as her own. The rest of the story follows the fallout from this morally bankrupt act. She withstands the trolling and conjecture from the anonymous online who (rightfully) think the whole thing smells a bit fishy. In a most despicable move, June even manipulates Athena’s grieving mother to keep her thievery secret. The lies and deceit keep piling up, as her book sales skyrocket. There’s a bit of Lionel-Shriver-Esque “who is allowed to tell a story?” moral quandary here.
This book had me okay in the first half, but then just kind of meandered to an incredibly unsatisfying ending. I feel like, towards the end, it almost became a meta commentary on how a writer with a good idea can struggle to stretch it out to a full novel. There was not enough to sustain the narrative for me. There was a late-breaking story about June’s past that I think was supposed to bring a level of empathy for the character, but even that felt like I, the reader, was being manipulated in the same way that June was manipulating those around her. It all gets very messy with ‘ghosts’ and stalkers and trolls, then ends with a depressing thud.
I realise that the point of this is that June is racist, and that she is supposed to be an unlikable character. But what I dearly wish is that June suffered much more than she did throughout this whole story, and that the ending of this novel was the telling of a complete and utter implosion of her life.
But maybe that’s the point? White tears.
3 intentionally racially ambiguous photo shoots out of 5.