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A review by nataliestorozhenko
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
3.0
I’m still processing the ending of this book. I have not formed an opinion on whether I like this story or not as a whole. But what I do know, is that I love R. F. Kuang’s writing. You just can’t tear your eyes off the text and just wish that you keep reading, to get a glimpse of where it’s leading…
Also, I like that this topic gives us a feeling of how the book publishing game works. I have not read anything similar to this, so the whole view of the process is quite interesting and actually sort of enlightening.
The whole weight of issues being raised here is quite overwhelming, it makes you conflicted about many questions at the same time.
Yes, each author has a right to write about anything, but at the same time if an author decides to write about some issue regarding race, minority, other nation’s history, and culture, etc. - it may become a whole disaster of cultural appropriation, wrong narrative, twisting truth and a lot of popular terms nowadays. I mean, I get it. I personally want to scream when I hear Russians name stolen Ukrainian authors, artists, and their work as their heritage.
The whole industry makes you scream. Instead of providing equal ground for absolutely everyone, they just make it seem that they’re diverse enough, that they embrace equality. They go all the way out and pull out the best marketing to highlight that they support this and that author and their cause to look good. But is this industry truly thrive in equality? Would there be a place where everyone will feel accepted and valued no matter their background? I feel sad because now this idea seems like a utopia. In the end, I believe that June can pull off some counterattack for Candice’s work… because we are shown how the whole narrative can be easily manipulated with the right words, tweets, etc.
It is stated as well that this book is about loneliness. And it’s not only about this industry. It feels like this generation’s tragedy. We can easily cut off people just for one wrong step, we care too much about a public image for the appraisal that’s mostly fake and artificial. The real and human part is dismissed too quickly because we have to maintain some mirage.
By the end of the book, I feel quite liberated. I want to be free of this social media bubble and this whole cancel culture. I don’t ever want to rely on somebody’s reviews. I don’t want to pick books that are fed to us by genius marketing. I want my critical thinking to be open to reading any book and looking at it like art from different angles and perspectives. I want to hear out what it has to say. It might be ugly and might be faulty, but maybe there’s a hidden gem somewhere out there?
Also, I like that this topic gives us a feeling of how the book publishing game works. I have not read anything similar to this, so the whole view of the process is quite interesting and actually sort of enlightening.
The whole weight of issues being raised here is quite overwhelming, it makes you conflicted about many questions at the same time.
Yes, each author has a right to write about anything, but at the same time if an author decides to write about some issue regarding race, minority, other nation’s history, and culture, etc. - it may become a whole disaster of cultural appropriation, wrong narrative, twisting truth and a lot of popular terms nowadays. I mean, I get it. I personally want to scream when I hear Russians name stolen Ukrainian authors, artists, and their work as their heritage.
The whole industry makes you scream. Instead of providing equal ground for absolutely everyone, they just make it seem that they’re diverse enough, that they embrace equality. They go all the way out and pull out the best marketing to highlight that they support this and that author and their cause to look good. But is this industry truly thrive in equality? Would there be a place where everyone will feel accepted and valued no matter their background? I feel sad because now this idea seems like a utopia. In the end, I believe that June can pull off some counterattack for Candice’s work… because we are shown how the whole narrative can be easily manipulated with the right words, tweets, etc.
It is stated as well that this book is about loneliness. And it’s not only about this industry. It feels like this generation’s tragedy. We can easily cut off people just for one wrong step, we care too much about a public image for the appraisal that’s mostly fake and artificial. The real and human part is dismissed too quickly because we have to maintain some mirage.
By the end of the book, I feel quite liberated. I want to be free of this social media bubble and this whole cancel culture. I don’t ever want to rely on somebody’s reviews. I don’t want to pick books that are fed to us by genius marketing. I want my critical thinking to be open to reading any book and looking at it like art from different angles and perspectives. I want to hear out what it has to say. It might be ugly and might be faulty, but maybe there’s a hidden gem somewhere out there?