Yellowface by R.F. Kuang – subject: thrillers
We found this book intriguing and it dealt with some big themes; almost too many of them, perhaps, but it managed to hold the attention despite a lack of sympathetic characters. If anyone would like to write a sentence or two about the book, please email me Janet Bayliss – so we can post to the book group part of the ESNEFT book group website.
This is a book by an American author, who is also very young (27 at the time of the novel’s publication). She is of Chinese-American background, with a formidable education including spells at Magdalene College, Cambridge and University College, Oxford, along with a number of previous published novels (mainly in the science-fiction/fantasy type category). This all informs the book.
June (Juniper), the narrator and main character is not a pleasant person, but she has had a difficult life and a lot of disappointment in her rather truncated writing career. She is friend of Athena, a young but much feted writer who dies in unexpected circumstances when June is present. As Athena has just shown her a draft of her latest book, June feels justified in taking the manuscript and publishing it in her own name. Unfortunately, the ramifications of this mean that the situation spirals out of control; as June is white, whilst Athena was Chinese-American in origin. If you add in a lot of messages and discussion via social media; this is a book packed full of ideas and themes.
We were not sure if this book is a thriller, we also found that the many themes were almost too much to swallow: racism, a satire on publishing, social media; issues around lies and truth; secrets being kept and revealed, ethics in writing: the list goes on. Everything is filtered through the point of view of June, who is not a reliable narrator; so none of the characters come across as very likeable although some of them are probably decent people. This made the book a bit hard-going, but the quality of the writing shone through. We were not keen on the end though, feeling that the plot rather lost its focus, but it did provoke some very interesting discussion on the problems of social media.
We felt that there were some parallels in terms of themes between this month’s book and The book of form and emptiness by Ruth Ozeki, the difference being that this is a calm, philosophical study of a Korean-Japanese-Canadian boy’s coming to terms with loss.
Black cake by Charmaine Wilkerson, a novel about relationships where two siblings look into their mother’s past, told in two different timelines and worthy of a read had yet another airing in discussion. Another ongoing suggestion was The trial by Rob Rinder.
We wondered if the next book by R.F. Kuang: Babel, published late 2023 would be a worthwhile consideration for a read as the reviews looked good. For fantasy readers, The priory of the orange tree by Samantha Shannon came in with a recommendation; at 830 pages it is too long for book group, although fantasy novels are often doorstops in length.
Several of the above may be on Libby, check them out at the ESNEFT Libby pages.