YellowFace
By Rebecca F. Huang
Published Year: 2023
Page Count: 320 pages
Medium Used : Paperback
Genre : Drama, Literary Field, Suspense, Young Adult, 2024-read.
Rating : 5/5 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳
I got a lot of exposure into the world of publishing and literature. Like how they make their manuscripts, make edits and replacements with the help of their editors team and clout, publish the book and get their pre-orders, reviews, ratings and public talk etc. I even learnt how they sell rights to foreign country publishing houses post/pre release and how books get turned into movies onscreen. It's a fantastic and mesmerizing world in itself. The transience of authors and their reputations..how they have to keep churning out material to stay relevant in a high stakes game. Its wonderful!
At times, I felt the story to be going slower for my required reading pace. It felt dragging and drawling. If I choose to ignore those narrative spots where it goes at a glacial pace, the story is fantastic. There are multiple layers that are built into the narrative. The author has taken a very complex route to tell a story within a story. 😅😅
A very successful author has written a manuscript that she showed to no one but her very close friend. Then she dies from an accidental food ingestion. This friend has different paths/forked options to pursue. She could give away the manuscript to the dead author's agent or can mask it as her own. 🤐 Denying and ignoring the calls of her conscience to do the right thing, she steals it. That manuscript tells the story of Chinese people, who are shipped as laborers, to fight the World War 1 on behalf of British(white people). Rebecca touches upon the key points that define the story within the manuscript where by its like she wrote that story as an addendum to the main story of this book. I thought it's a brilliant way of telling/revealing story within a story. (How these Chinese laborers are treated as prisoners than war aides. How those insubordinate are punished with death. How they are treated as vile, sexual pests that are avoided even by young, white, French maidens.)
The dead author is of Chinese descent. While her friend who stole the manuscript and published the book after polishing it,under her name yellowfaced as a Chinese name, is an American. So after the book is published, the friend faces an eruption of plagiarism and racism scandals. She becomes inveigled in a stream of accusations and lives through her fair share of awkward, embarrassing moments - where she has to accept that she is not Chinese as her writing pseudonym suggests. She is followed, haunted, tricked by her nemesis who won't just let her off the hook. Ever since the book is out, she doesn't have a proper wink of sleep or ingests a proper morsel of food. She becomes sallow, with bags of dark circles under her eyes.
I also enjoyed and appreciated how the ending comes. The fight between the friend and her nemesis is not enough to close down either of them. The war/fight of blame and defense between the accuser and the accused is endless. So, finally. I think the moral is that there will always be consequences to acting immorally. But not everyone learns their lesson. They perpetually alter between hope and despair but keep going .. because that's what life is!!
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