Yellowface
White lies. Dark humor. Deadly consequences… Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn’t write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American—in this chilling and hilariously cutting novel from R.F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel. Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who 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 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.
Stats for nerds
2recommend
2mentions
2people
2023–2025years
100% recommend
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Here are a few of my favorite reads from 2024.
If I were to just pick one favorite, it is not even a contest. Heck, challenge me to pick one favorite in a decade, it would still be this. Charlie Munger! Charlie Munger: Poor Charlie’s Almanack I even wrote about this: https://krishna2.com/munger
Just like countless others, I too grew up bewildered by Jackie Chan's movies and his stunts. And I liked his autobiography.
Jackie Chan: Never Grow Up
I read "The Poppy War" - even though I liked it, I didn't want to go down a full-fledged series. I read "Yellowface" and loved it so much. I have "Babel" on my shelf - but (irrationally) I am not reading it thinking that it would be over if I read it.
R. F. Kuang: Yellowface
I can't wait for what R.F. Kuang's going to come up with next.
This is an old classic -- my son recommended this to me. I enjoyed it.
Goethe: The Sorrows of Young Werther
What an amazing biography. Very very inspiring.
Robin Marantz Henig: Monk in the Garden: Life of Gregor Mendel
I had gotten her "Ember in the Ashes" in 2016 or so but never got to it - but this story snipper caught my attention. What a lovely book. It is set in a Motel in a Sierra Nevada town in California. Loved the book. Promptly went back to read "Ember in the ashes". This book (all my rage) won the National Book Award for Young Readers.
Sabhaa Tahir: All my Rage
Everyone's bound to get on this train sooner or later (I think this is being made into a movie) -- 440,000+ reviews on amazon. I got curious and got this book. Liked it.
Freida McFadden: The Housemaid
I am keeping the recommendations to a general audience and hence skipping my Vedanta books (which I thoroughly relish/read and read again many times). Oh, there are a bunch of business books too, a bunch more fiction this year (than my usual ratio) including a few LitRPG and of course, some running related. As always, you can see the full list here:
Here's to a happy prosperous fulfilling 2025!
Happy reading!
This post is available at: https://krishna2.com/2024 Post on Jan 1, 2024 (2023 reading): https://krishna2.com/2023 Post on Jan 1, 2023 (2022 reading): https://krishna2.com/2022
- Contemporary:
° Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
° Big Swiss by Jen Beagin
Thriller:
° Barbed Wire Heart by Tess Sharpe
