Staff Picks - LibGuides at Boulder Public Library

R. F. Kuang's books never cease to amaze me! Yellowface follows June, an aspiring best selling author, as she steals Athena Liu's drafted story after her accidental death. June edits the draft, rebrands herself completely, and publishes the book, which becomes a major success along with its controversy. Yellowface highlights many topics such as how identity impacts experience, cultural appropriation, and the modern social climate. The plot is unlike any I have ever read and the character development leaves you on the edge of your seat as June makes her life-altering decisions. Kuang leaves you questioning society and the source of inspiration for writers.

- Altea, twelfth-grade teen volunteer

Publisher's description:

Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena's a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn't even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena's death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena's just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I.

So what if June edits Athena's novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song--complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn't this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That's what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree. But June can't get away from Athena's shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June's (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface takes on questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation not only in the publishing industry but the persistent erasure of Asian-American voices and history by Western white society. R. F. Kuang's novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.

Find Yellowface in the library's online catalog.

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