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andylancelotMy 5 star review of <a href="https://toot.wales/tags/Yellowface" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Yellowface</a> by <a href="https://toot.wales/tags/RebeccaKuang" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#RebeccaKuang</a> 💛👍 <a href="https://toot.wales/tags/books" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#books</a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62047984" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62047984</a>

AusirUnsurprisingly, TikTok is also censoring this<a href="https://meowr.me/tags/worldcon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#worldcon</a> <a href="https://meowr.me/tags/hugoawards" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#hugoawards</a> <a href="https://meowr.me/tags/hugos" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#hugos</a> <a href="https://meowr.me/tags/rebeccakuang" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#rebeccakuang</a> <a href="https://meowr.me/tags/xiranjayzhao" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#xiranjayzhao</a> <a href="https://meowr.me/tags/tiktok" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#tiktok</a>

ShouldBeGaminButDoomscrollinAnyway this isn't a spoiler. Yellowface is best to go in knowing that while Juniper was an awful person and unreliable narrator, Kuang herself explicitly said that every accusation in the book about what a horrible person Athena Liu was, is all true.<a href="https://toot.cat/tags/Yellowface" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Yellowface</a> <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/RebeccaKuang" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#RebeccaKuang</a> <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/RFKuang" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#RFKuang</a>

ShouldBeGaminButDoomscrollinSo for some reasons, I thought Yellowface was partially written with a mirror of major art events, like maybe Juniper was partially inspired by Jeff Dieschburg, and Athena was partially by Kristen Roupenian. Turned out both events only broke after the book was written and before it was published, so that's pretty prophylactic but also, fully expected behaviour in art. I found Jeff Dieschburg comparison maybe isn't that accurate, because he's so stupid at his theft, and so much more stupid at how he handled it, that his only career choice left over is being a politician like his awful mum. Meanwhile what's interesting about Kristen Roupenian parallel, is while I can't think of a worse fate than becoming Athena one day, this connection made me realise it could be worse, I suppose we could become Kristen Roupenian. If Athena was a slightly over the top version of people's worst assumption about writers (ha ha we can never be friends because you will just write about what I told you without permission then profit from it), Kristen Roupenian was another level of prolonged stalking, and another level of exploitation for personal gain that may or may not resulted a death. And she's still rewarded for it. The entire thing about Kristen Roupenian was how her entire work was crafted with the strong understanding on what are the clickbaits and what will make something viral, and while the work isn't even good (like my god a 21 year old's worst like experience was a consensual bad sex, does anyone even know anyone this sheltered), it perfectly fed the particular type of publishers who are quite possibly truly lived such ridiculously easy lives. She took enough of Alexis's life to significantly interrupt Alexis's life, but completely stripping away any of Alexis's agency and just made her into a meme caricature. Almost any other work from Hashtag MeToo would've been better than this woman-exploiting-another-woman-for-self-gain thing, but anything else would be too complex and less marketable than what New Yorker Cultural/Meme leaders could profit from. So in Yellowface it's pretty much implied that it's already really awful how Athena's entire career strategy was to claim others' suffering, alter them enough to be made into something more memeble and viral, then profit from it. Given Yellowface has quite a strong flavour to that, it's dehumanising to claim one East Asian person can claim for an entire group of people, and it's something I always had huge issues with the white-gazy, western-profitted type of "Asian narratives". It also requires someone as awful as Athena to choose to let herself to be that for personal gain. Oh man Yellowface is so good Rebecca Kuang my hero. <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/Yellowface" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Yellowface</a> <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/RebeccaKuang" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#RebeccaKuang</a> <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/RFKuang" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#RFKuang</a> <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/CatPerson" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#CatPerson</a> <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/KristenRoupenian" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#KristenRoupenian</a>

ShouldBeGaminButDoomscrollinYellowface, Rebecca Kuang. Maybe spoilers?

jimjollingsRecently I read Yellowface by Rebecca Kuang. It’s an amazing tale of a person who finds herself digging herself into a deeper and deeper terrible hole, while managing to continue inspiring sympathy. Kuang has rapidly become one of my favourite authors, and I can imagine this being a book I reread over the years and appreciate more and more each time.<a href="https://mstdn.social/tags/AmReading" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#AmReading</a> <a href="https://mstdn.social/tags/Yellowface" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#Yellowface</a> <a href="https://mstdn.social/tags/RebeccaKuang" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#RebeccaKuang</a> <a href="https://mstdn.social/tags/RFKuang" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#RFKuang</a>

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