Yellowface - R. F. Kuang ------------------ 4 Stars

Released last year, Yellowface was met with some strong early reviews and was recommended to me as a good read. I recently finished it, really quite quickly, and agree that it's a worth checking out for a coupe of reasons.

As the title and cover aren't super helpful in understand the premise, it is a book about a struggling author who is friendly with a much more popular author. But, when that author dies suddenly with the main character present, she pilfers a few things and then finishes the dead author's unwritten novel. Of course, it goes on to great success but there are some problems that quickly arise, most obviously the book is written by an Asian author, which she is not. 

The book really leans into the satire of racial diversity and the thread of race is inherent through the entire novel. Besides having a "viewpoint" and having clear takes about modern culture, the book is a really fun read. It's written in a way that the reader's attention is grabbed pretty quickly and continues at a quick pace through much of the novel. As my reviews are heavily based on entertainment value, I enjoyed this text and found it hard to put down. 

I also really did appreciate how modern and relevant the text was. While I am not sure it will necessarily age well, it already felt like there was an over reliance on the use of X/Twitter in the book, it did seem clearly written in the present day. Leaning into a variety of current technology the book talks about not just the wide variety of social media apps, the ubiquitous of cell phones, but even AI software used to determine what of the novel was the original author and what was not.

The biggest downside of the book was it didn't seem like it knew where it wanted to go after the initial premise.  The first half is great but then it slows down a bit and never really hits a different gear. Don't get me wrong, it's still a good read and interesting but it felt a bit in stasis. I also thought it was not a strong ending which also took away from the success of the story. I'm writing this about a week after I finished and am struggling to even remember how it ended; not a good sign!

Overall, it's a fun and thought provoking book that really does have some interesting takes. Like any good piece of satire, I left thinking differently about a few things. That, plus, a super fast read via a non stop page turning story, leads to a 4 star review.