Yellowface

Rating Description:

1.0 - DNF/Despise

1.5 - Almost DNFed and wish I had

2.0 - Almost DNFed but had redeeming qualities/just boring

2.5 - Alright with lots of notes

3.0 - Alright with notes but I'm not raving about it

3.5 - Technically good but I'm not raving about it

4.0 - Love but with notes

4.5 - Love it so much I want to highlight the book but still with notes

5.0 - Love it so much I want to highlight the book and notes are very positive

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I read this book because it was the pick for the local library’s book club.

Writing style, pacing and all that jazz was fine. But given how I’ve heard so much good things about this author, I was expecting to be wowed. Needless to say, I was not. But that might be because this was not necessarily the genre she’s known for.

When I first started reading this, my first thought was that this was a very well done RPF and self-insert at the same time. It’s almost as if the author imagined what her haters think about her and what they would do if she actually died, and wrote that.

The premise of the story was interesting to me. Mostly because I didn’t really think that someone would think that they can pull off something like this in this day and age or that someone could really think that being a minority would help their writing career. But then again, we just had an author (Kim Crisci) try to do this very thing by saying her name is Kim Chi. Also, let’s not forget the whole Cait Corrain debacle.

From my understanding there were 2 big plot points.

1. The flaws of the publishing world.

2. Are writers allowed to write stories that they themselves have not experienced?

Now while the path the author took was ok but I can’t help but feel that it would have been stronger if instead of the fake author being white, and going mad with the pitfalls of being an imposter, that author should have been another minority.

1. All those scenes, where the fake author was being eaten away with guilt, could have remained.

2. It highlights the publishing world’s tendency to limit their roster of minority authors.

3. It also still hits the point that the fake author, despite being a minority themself, was still far removed from the what happened in the book through experience or even heritage.

Now I rate this as 4 stars because it is still a far better book than the Green Creek series books. But I doubt I’d want to read this again. I don’t even want to own a copy.