First Impression Friday will be a meme where you talk about a book that you JUST STARTED! Maybe you’re only a chapter or two in, maybe a little farther. Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end.

Synopsis:

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.

With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as the terrifying alienation of social media. R.F. Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.

Happy Friday everyone! Yes, after a long week at the office, it is finally the weekend! I do hope that everyone is ending the work week on a high note. I hope it went well for everyone. Personally, today has been eventful as we had to submit our compliance reports but the reporting for this quarter is a little more challenging as we are transitioning to a new reporting platform. We were not able to fully complete our report because the guidelines are incomplete. I just hope that we will be able to complete our submission by Monday. I hope that everyone’s day has been easier. If it went the other way around, I hope that you will spend the weekend recovering. I hope you get your groove back.

But before I can ditch my corporate attires and don some comfortable articles of clothing, I will be sharing a fresh First Impression Friday update. Woah. I just realized that today is the second to the last Friday of July. In a couple of days, we will be greeting a new month. This also means that in a matter of days, I will be wrapping up my two-month venture across Asian literature. It has been a magical literary journey that has taken me all over the continent, except for Central Asia. I was also able to make up for parts of the literary world that I have long been neglecting; I read more works of Chinese, South Korean, and Filipino literature this year than in any other year. With July slowly drawing its curtain, I hope to cover as many books as possible.

Yesterday, I finished my third novel by a Filipino writer. Today, I have started reading R.F. Kuang’s latest novel, Yellowface. It was a couple of years ago that I first came across Kuang. Her fantasy novels such as The Poppy War and The Burning God were ubiquitous. However, I felt like the novels were not my style, so I avoided them. A couple of years later, I would come across Kuang again while researching for books to include in my 2023 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To List. Her latest novel, Yellowface, was ubiquitous in several most anticipated 2023 book release lists. It was a no-brainer for me to include the book in my own list. After Deepti Kapoor’s Age of Vice, it is the second book from my own list that I read.

Yellowface was narrated by its primary character, June Hayward, a young writer. She was friends with a fellow writer, Angela Liu, although their friendship was built by circumstance. During their freshman year at Yale University, they lived on the same floor. They also shared the same classes because of their shared dream to become successful writers. During the infancy of their careers, they submitted and published their short stories in the same literary magazines. Post-university, they moved to the same city, Washington, D.C. It was at this juncture that their paths diverged.

June was American while Angela Ling En Liu was born in Hong Kong. Growing up, Angela had a peripatetic life as she was raised between Sydney and New York and was educated in British boarding schools. Meanwhile, there was nothing impressive about June’s background. This stark dichotomy in their backstories was a harbinger of their literary careers. With her debut novel, Angela immediately established a name for herself. She was the darling of the literary crowd. Her works were adored by the public. They were instant bestsellers. She capped it with a lucrative Netflix deal. Meanwhile, June’s career did not start on the right note. Her debut novel was a flop. Her literary agent was oblivious to her works.

Despite how their respective careers have shaped up, June and Angela kept in touch. They were not primarily close and their meetups skirt around personal matters. June felt like Angela was only keeping her as a friend so that Angela will feel good about herself. She also did not deny that she was envious of Angela’s success. Things came ahead when, during one of their meetups, Angela passed away from a freak accident: she choked while eating a hotdog. It was also during this meetup that Angela showed her recently completed manuscript about the role played by Chinese laborers during the First World War. Angela was notorious for not showing her works to anyone, including her literary agents until her works were finished. June was immediately impressed by the premise. The novel’s primary driver was what happened after Angela’s death.

I have finished a third of the book and I must say I am also impressed. Kuang – I can’t believe that she is younger than me – is, without a doubt, a riveting storyteller. This is especially true considering how Yellowface is a deviation from the fantasy novels she built her literary career. I am also impressed with the diversity of subjects the novel tackled. The focus was on the world of writing and publication, hence, most of the subjects the novel examined orbited around these worlds. Cultural appropriation, cultural sensitivity checks, and cultural authenticity, or what is more known as “own voices” amongst literary circles, were among the subjects the story underlined.

The role of literary criticism was also highlighted in the novel. One passage involved Goodreads and how writers should avoid reading reviews published on the site. I recently came across an article about how Goodreads is destroying writing. I must say that I get some of the points. Yellowface is also riddled with contemporary social commentaries. The role of Twitter and social media was depicted in the story. Twitter can become a toxic environment where discourses often lead to ad hominem arguments. The prevalence of the cancel culture was also subtly underscored in the novel.

Wow. For a novel that I haven’t even read midway, I have quite a lot to say about Yellowface. I mean, I really am enjoying the story. This makes me look forward to how the story is going to develop. Will there still be more that the story will explore when it already filled my plate with just the first one hundred pages? I am hoping that it will not end in a cycle of repetitiveness because it would be lamentable. How about you fellow reader? What book or books are you taking with you for the weekend? I hope you get to enjoy them. Again, happy weekend everyone!