The problem with “Yellowface” by RF Kuang: my thoughts on race, class, and the publishing industry

[@zephyrperz5858]

Imo kuang is a really talented writer and existing as a author of color on the internet has probably made her (understandably) very jaded about her readers' ability to Get what she's writing. The heavy handed-ness of YF and even Babel to an extent really detracts from her very obvious talent, and I hope she's able to get past being worried about being misunderstood and just write what she wants to say with the complexity she's capable of

[@withcindy]

yes totally agree!!

[@nesientmindelan797]

You just made something make total sense to me. I have read a couple books lately by authors where I felt the new ones were not as complex / nuanced their debuts. And I was like ... but you're other stuff was great. And now I am looking back and thinking, maybe they read too many reviews and felt the need to get a bit more heavy handed for the critics who didnt get the debuts.

[@ImagineStory-rw5ks]

⁠@@nesientmindelan797hi just wondering, can you give examples of authors who do that?

[@luiysia]

YA authors are the most chronically online people ever and it's rotting their brains 😩

[@LightningRaven42]

Yeah, you can clearly see that she's a competent writer, but her major flaw is her heavy handed approach to her characters and themes. I read the Poppy War Trilogy, and there were many great things about it, however the commitment to mirroring real history hurt the story a lot, that and the bad-YA main characters. The Poppy War is weird that way, it's a story with very mature themes and with a bold corruption arc for its main character, while at the same time, reading like a poorly-written YA on the characterization level.

[@elderflower2133]

yet again I watch cindy talk about a book I haven't read and I nod along the whole time

[@withcindy]

Appreciate u being here 😊

[@thesentienttoadstool9369]

Me in my first year lit class.

[@axelgonzalez2806]

Cindy: building an elaborate thesis based on readily-available evidence I have never and will never see for myself Me: "so true bestie"

[@tiffanykim2773]

I mean why not? 🤷🏽‍♀️😂

[@jayt3179]

@@axelgonzalez2806 facts

[@nikolasscheeks]

“To have this character in Yellowface become this instant literary star because now her manuscript has a good story, is to imply that publishing is a meritocracy, where the best books make it. Not because of class, or race, or any kind of advantage, but because their writing was just so damn good. Now THAT’s a fictional story if I ever heard one.” That smile! You know you ate that. I was snapping and nodding my head to every point you made. Thoughtful and insightful critique, as always. As an aspiring black author without the same advantages as RF Kuang, you’ve given me a lot to think about. I greatly enjoyed this video.

[@withcindy]

good luck with your novel!!

[@ladygrey4113]

Yup, the lady behind American dirt got a shit load of money for her terrible thriller book about woman who barely knows Mexico and thought conchas were a luxury item (they’re not) and was riding high before latin writers went in rightfully saying “what the fuck? Also you lifted passages from some of our books!” Publishing wants diverse stories…just written by and for white audiences. But even this year Stephen king still talked down about those writers and critics as jealous and mean, which the New York Times also did

[@Taleofthegreat]

I was applauding at that part

[@nviz47]

I love this take, this analysis too ❤

[@thefeelingoflookingataclea932]

27:27 Just so I can come back to this moment

[@ilanag6096]

I was so impressed when I learned Christopher Paolini wrote Eragon when he was 15. Then I learned it was his parents' publishing company that took the book to market. Still impressive, but context is everything.

[@withcindy]

Exactly!!!

[@asherscott3151]

He wrote the first draft at 15, but edited and finished it at 18. It was published even later. That story about him being a child writer was literally a advertising trick 😅

[@BarknoorZ]

The whole thing about Christopher Paolini being 15 when he wrote Eragon really affected me in my early teen years. I really wanted to become an author and thought that I needed to be extremely special and succeed at a younger age. I felt that I needed to be just like Paolini, and told myself that I have to write my first book by 15, or else I've failed. Obviously, I couldn't finish writing anything, I just put unnecessary pressure on myself and got stuck in a cycle where I'd write, couldn't write anymore, feel really bad about myself, until I could write again and so on. Looking back on it, I feel sorry for my younger self who felt the need to feel special by way of success, and how my younger self's idea of "success" was tied to someone else's age and story.

[@rachelkim4457]

While it is true that Paolini’s parents helped him start, from what I understand his books didn’t sell much through his parents company. It was only after he did book tour after tour with elementary schools and got picked up by a bigger company that he really found success. There’s pictures of him wearing medieval(?) outfits at school libraries. And he’s said that librarians loved inviting him to talk to kids about how young people can write books too. Just because his parents helped him out a bit, does not mean he did not put in a TON of effort to put his book out there and make it succeed

[@BintanginTaya]

​@@sophiesarchiveyou didn't understand the OP's comment

[@KagamiHN]

I think the conversations that could've been opened if both characters were Asian-American would be much more interesting than the White lady being the villain. As a poor South-East Asian in a creative field who didn't meet PoC with money until I was in college, the class divide in the Asian community is something that should be talked about more and would bring so much more dimension than the tried and true but cathartic low hanging fruit of a bad White person stealing a PoC's work. Something like Nella Larsen's Passing is a classic because of the complexity it tackles regarding conflicts within the same group, not just an easy good vs. bad story where the conflict is easily decipherable. Considering Kuang's background, the shallow commentary on race without intersectionality becomes a disapointment. Like, of course a rich Asian woman would think the biggest problem is that White people are evil, and completely miss the fact that they too are a problem for their own people because of the wealth. As someone who lives close to NYC's Chinatown, the struggles of the Asian community become so much more than just a racial issue when there's rich Asian relators pushing out small businesses, when gentrification is not just from White people, but all rich people. The class divide is an immediate threat, not something that should be on the back burner while everyone bands together to fight for equality.

[@withcindy]

This comment is so well written, thank you for taking the time to share this ❤️

[@ArtleyDraws]

Omg please read disorientation it has such a good board of Asian woman characters experiencing these same themes!

[@laurenm3148]

Yes! I think this would have been a MUCH stronger novel if both women were Asian-American.

[@lin8168]

"low hanging fruit" is a great way to describe it. i was never fully able to articulate why this novel felt annoying to me from the outset as a fellow poor south east asian but this comment nails it.

[@ariesaraya1822]

Rebecca probably didn't want to come off as the bad guy. She wants the privilege w/o the criticism. If this was focused on class, her own privileges would be under a greater spotlight.

[@showtelll]

R.F’s education before ENTERING university costed 420,000$. Her success was so predetermined and financially funded, it makes so much sense how much success she has seen in such a short time.

[@withcindy]

some people get $420k, i smoke 4/20 k

[@rsmith4407]

Similar energy to finding out an actor had industry connections and is a low-key nepo-baby. Things are less impressive suddenly

[@mittag983]

Very disappointing I want more selfmade authors not those nepo writers

[@ImagineStory-rw5ks]

Sucks that how the publishing industry is

[@FlameQwert]

that's fascinating given that the asian character in the book is also in a similar spot.... some level of self-awareness. though since she does not go into the financial background side of things as cindy suggested, and making the POV character a caricature of racism.... maybe not so much LOL

[@apizzathatgiantforthesimpl5191]

Let us all applaud Cindy for being brave enough to make a cameo in this book. 👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@withcindy]

my claim to fame!

[@annietym]

Cindy is so brave, so glamour and humble

[@SirWeirdGuy]

What does a $30,000 pre-K even look like? Do they play with solid gold blocks? Canopy beds for naptime with a harpist on staff playing lullabies? LeVar Burton personally coming in to read to them every day?

[@amanda_lmao]

as someone who worked at one, it’s literally nothing special

[@withcindy]

levar burton personally tucks u in to bed and reads u to sleep

[@Chietcom]

Yes 30k is alot. But as a Nusery School Teacher I can tell you that just a place in a average Pre-K in my area costs the state around 12k a year. And that is with way to few educated teachers per children, low pay, bad food and no time and space to do anything with the children. Trying to improve any of these aspects can easily skyrocket the price of education. I am really glad that in my country the Families pay "almost" nothing for pre-K education (23€ for food a month), but there is still so much to improve and I am not sure that even 30k a year would be enough.

[@worldeater10]

nothing special, you basically pay for the exclusivity of it, and because u can

[@petiolereads]

@@Chietcom Yeah, as someone who just got out of the early childhood industry, it's more expensive than you think to run mainly because labor costs are so high. And that's generally including a horrendously underpaid staff! The preschool I just left charged $26K per year, but maintained an 8:1 ratio (legally only need 12:1) and paid teachers a (barely) livable wage for our area. And the school is still struggling to stay afloat! It's not a functional industry. The other thing that I would add is that schools like that are charging such high tuition in part to subsidize other families to receive tuition reduction and other financial aid. We don't know if Kuang's family paid full price or not. Regardless, she definitely has immense privilege from receiving that education, as Cindy said.

[@Laserdoll]

I love how Cindy is single-handedly “beefing” with authors with her critiques before she publishes her book, it takes guts and a lot of idgaf lol go girl

[@withcindy]

im sure ive been blacklisted already 😭

[@SaraWritesFantasy]

@@withcindy Looking forward to reading your book! I'm sure it's going to be awersome

[@arsenicbug1537]

@@withcindy self pub, ive been waiting to see whats in that book regardless

[@swirlingsun]

she says she has no beef w the author at the beginning of the video

[@lizxu322]

​@@withcindywhen i publish my novel, please rate it! I'd be honoured to even receive the harshest of criticisms

[@stmuncy]

I always think of a quote from Edgar Allen Poe’s Wikipedia page when I think about my prospects as an aspiring author “He is the first well-known American writer to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.” Lmao

[@luiysia]

damn he was real for that 🫡

[@DeathnoteBB]

And he died in a ditch :(

[@flintfoster8010]

Oop

[@znnz-p6b]

Kuang is terminally online especially with watching her critics reviews so I expect Yellowface 2.0 to be about Cindy

[@withcindy]

Kimberly Deng the youtuber from UCLA makes her reappearance

[@znnz-p6b]

@@withcindy RFK's next book: Cindyface

[@followingheartlines]

whats so frustrating tho is that being terminally online is not the problem (defs one but the major one), but the inability to accept criticism. im a visual artist and so used to engaging in critique and letting that drive my creative process so to see authors unable to do that is so embarrassing.

[@rsmith4407]

What can we really expect of someone who has enjoyed the cocooned experience of an 400k education service. It’s not like she’s likely had people say “that’s wasn’t actually that good, you know?”. Must be quite jarring for her to feel criticised - hence the emotional response and the shallow tone of this book. It honestly must be terrifying to imagine you aren’t where you are due to a meritocracy…no, it’s much more comfortable to imagine that all criticism is definitely always about race/jealousy but never about class commentary or fair reviews of her work…(!) eeeeek…I find it so awkward tbh.

[@3ki3ra3]

@@znnz-p6bLMFAOOOO

[@nataliajagielska8871]

Thank you so much. I'm sick and tired of class being ignored as one of dimensions of privilege. It's a blind spot in a lot of diversity discourse, and when rising criticism of private schooling or nepotism, people become extremely defensive to aggressive and don't want to explore and criticise that dimension.

[@error-try-again-later]

It's hard to sell yourself as a starving artist when you've never actually starved a day in your life. These are the same people who think their university life was "slumming it" lmao.

[@theluckynames]

Because they don’t want to have to grapple with the fact that their success was not wholly their own and that they do in SOME dimensions have privilege.

[@hoominbeeing]

It's because they're ignoring it on purpose lmao. These people will sit there in their mansions and unironically claim that they're more oppressed than a mcdonalds' worker because of their skin color and gender.

[@abbyabroad]

I'm a white woman who started as a public school teacher in the US and now live in Beijing. I've been in China since 2018 and moved here because I couldn't afford to live near family as a teacher in the southern US and was a bit blown away by the inconsistent characterization of the narrator. I loved Kuang's Poppy War but this read like the first draft of a teenager's angry screed. I was stunned that it's considered "literary fiction" but understood better when I realized that June is an amalgam of every criticism she's received. Still, coming from a family that suffered bankruptcy when I was young and going through state schools because they could give me scholarships, I found it hard to enjoy the satire because it beggared belief. The narrator went to Yale but never enjoyed or even ate Chinese food? Either that is some classist sh*t or some incredibly inconsistent characterization; the only person I know in my own experience who might feel this way about Chinese food is a 60+ year old white woman who has never left suburban Georgia. So it was jarring, but hey! It sure did cause some intriguing discussion 😅

[@maiajane9993]

I personally wasn't aware of how hard it is to get paid to write stories as a new author until Xiran Jay Zhao (a queer Asian Canadian author) posted a video explaining why they haven't been able to prioritize writing the sequel to their bestselling novel Iron Widow. This shocked me so much that an author can be this successful and yet not be paid enough upfront to prioritize their work.

[@withcindy]

yeah it was very discouraging to see :( many authors have to work separate jobs. if anyone is a full time author they definitely have financial support via family or spouse

[@hannahcraig6763]

That's absolutely wild to me. Mid-tier youtubers will have whole staff in addition to themselves supported by a channel and Xiran Jay fucking Zhao smashes the bestseller list and can't get a decent advance for a sequel? How are any books written ever?

[@Nana-hz2tr]

@@hannahcraig6763 but how much are they actually selling of iron widow though. That novel is objectively terrible.

[@melody4444441]

​@@Nana-hz2trI don't think you know what 'objectively' means

[@atherisGAY]

Does Xiran Jay Zhao go by they/them? /genuine question I am nb myself and I love their videos

[@Princess_Weekes]

I feel like all the recent events with the Hugos, Cait Coran, etc have made this book even more realistic than when I first read it.

[@beckyginger3432]

Omg it would be so cool to hear you speak about the Hugo nonsense

[@mina352]

I remember being really turned off of Kuang because she tweeted complaining she had to pay taxes. You know, someone who says they’re Leftist with politics and grew up incredibly rich complained that she had to pay taxes. I rolled my eyes so hard at that.

[@withcindy]

To be fair, I guess if she were extremely rich, she would not have to pay taxes LOL

[@zetanone7211]

not to be pedantic but anarchists are leftists and we don't think anyone should have to pay taxes. But we also think accumulation of wealth, money, private property, and corporations are bad as well so...

[@derekg5563]

@@withcindy How exactly is that being fair? Wouldn't it be unfair that she wouldn't have to pay taxes? It seems that whether she would have to pay taxes or not, she ought to, and she ought not to think otherwise.

[@ThaliMoraes]

@@zetanone7211 I mean, no one should have to pay taxe bcs the system should not exist. But while still does better to have public stuff happening. So when you critique taxes It Is really weird when you could complain about the state anda capitalism

[@zetanone7211]

@@ThaliMoraes yeah i do. I mean taxes were a lot worse before state imposed monetary systems. Before the industrial revolution they straight up just stole your stuff, not a vague representation of your stuff, they just straight up stole your cows or your wheat or whatever you were growing and depending on. In sense the rigid, enforced payments we make for everything are just an evolved form of taxes. Instead of "if you don't give us your stuff we'll kill you" it's "if you don't give us these slips of paper that don't mean anything we'll stop you from getting that food you're depending on to survive." Anyway I think a critique of taxation is a still an important part of anarchist theory, especially if we broaden our horizons on what is and is not tax.

[@kinrateia]

My big problem was that, like. Those criticisms of Rebecca arent even all that popular. I read Poppy War with a friend and we both together felt one of the things she mentions in the book - particuraly, the critique about native Taiwanese representation. But while we discussed it together, when we looked it up, there was... Nothing. Just scraps in some reviews and a single comment on twitter that was immediately jumped onto by the series fan. We were kind of dissapointed by that, but whatever - we did not expect most people to care about indigenous representation. We didn't even blame the author all that much, considering her age at time of writing the series. AND THEN YELLOWFACE COMES OUT. It was so surreal to see her actually depict people like me and my friend like simply stupid haters who just want to bark up a random tree. It was never even a popular criticism! She didn't even have to hold grudge about it! She was young when writing the book and could easily say that she just didn't know better at the time or just ignore it alltogether. BUT NO! a minor section of us, people who actually had a problem, are just nitpickers, we are just mean to a succesful genius. It really shook my image of Rebecca.

[@withcindy]

Yeah I find it odd that she depicted the criticism of indigenous Taiwanese representation as a throwaway criticism done by an internet hate mob. While internet hate and bandwagoning on canceling an author is def something that happens to WOC authors, I don't think adding the Taiwanese rep part is the right placement for that - or if it does get placed, it should have more care in exploring that convo and how internet hate simplifies valid critique, rather than just used as a throwaway line

[@infinitecurlie]

Sounds like the author is just unable to take criticism or expand their worldview. Which honestly when I see this after taking creative writing classes and doing workshops has me shook because that's the whole point of those classes.

[@bect9439]

​@@infinitecurlieI'm torn about where I think she'll go as an author. She's obviously incredibly smart and has talent and drive. Normally I'd think that she's just young and it'll get better over time. However, she's already in her late 20s, so I doubt her ability to handle criticism will get a ton better at this point. If Yellowface is actually indicative of how she feels about (relevant) criticism, then I'm less optimistic about her writing becoming more nuanced over time.

[@angelscores4332]

OH MY GODDD YESSSSS IM AN AVID CRITICIZER OF TPW COLORISM AND SEXISM AND THERES NOTHING ON ITTTTT this girl had to basically DIG for it 😭

[@hwchen39]

As a Taiwanese-American person, this is why you can't trust Mainlanders to tell Taiwanese stories lol. The Taiwanese rep is weird in that series. I actually did not understand that Speer was supposed to be analogous to Taiwan until the third book because even during the Sino-Japanese War Taiwan was not at all like the way it is depicted in the book? Also Taiwan is not and has never been an uninhabited island and to my knowledge, Taiwanese indigenous tribes didn't practice shamanism. But also to be fair, Taiwanese indigenous people are not reading this book and it's probably mostly Taiwanese-Americans encountering it, but the representation is quite odd. One of these things that I'm better off not thinking too deeply about...

[@sandrae2398]

also sorry to comment again but i also loved what you said about kuang sticking to her own personal grievances instead of expanding her worldview - because i think a lot of nepo babies did the same thing, or rich people in general, where they all focus on their own success and defending their right to it, instead of thinking "maybe there are people less privileged that i am who are right to wish they had the same opportunities i did".

[@withcindy]

yes, i got the sense that she was venting her personal frustrations about publishing, which is totally fine but i think is very limiting and doesnt challenge herself enough as a writer to expand outside her boundaries

[@error-try-again-later]

It makes me laugh when people defend nepo babies' defensiveness about this topic because "it makes them insecure about their success." Like...yes, rightfully so lmao. It's fully justified to question whether someone would have gotten their position without having very unfair advantages at the starting line. You either hate the capitalist lottery or you don't.

[@blandface9957]

Bro the tuition for her school when she was little was more than my family made YEARLY growing up and the amount that my family makes now tbh 💀

[@SilentTrip]

same

[@lesbiangoddess290]

I was like😮 the whole video. My parents could NEVER

[@m.josena4485]

Right I was like that’s how much my parents almost make in a year 😟

[@moomin469]

SAME 😭😭😭

[@MrAmazingAwesomeness]

The main character's soup dumpling hate is truly what makes her irredeemable

[@chibiktsn3]

That and the tentacle porn comment were when I was like, "Okay, I know it's satire, but this might be a bit too cartoonishly racist."

[@beth387]

which is such a bizarre choice because white ppl love soup dumplings lol. and kung pow chicken is like the whitest chinese food you could ever eat. theres a reason mid-range chinese restaurants as so popular in the west, like at least she could have tried harder and been like "ew fried octopus" or "noo not the chicken feet". not even remotely realistic, it just read like an snl skit

[@naijingguo4783]

I audibly gasped out loud when I read that 😆 “Ok I know you are trying to make a point but the point has been made ok RF😆😆”

[@BerryBearBeaver]

I'm shook at how nuanced, eloquent, relevant, and insightful this book critique was. It was a fair discussion, and valuable to all authors looking to improve and work on blind spots. Also, not Cindy spittin while wearing a Powell's t-shirt! The vibes are immaculate.

[@withcindy]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@sandrae2398]

omg this was great commentary. i think people often overlook the role that class plays in oppression - the way that it's usually rich people that get to work on their craft, perfect it, and have their art form, such as writing, be their job. it's sad because obviously these writers, like kuang, have a super privileged life in regard to class that most don't, so their work reflects that. 30,000 dollars a YEAR is insane for a private school. i'm disappointed kuang didn't explore the role of class. everything you said was SPOT ON

[@withcindy]

yes! it's not just monetary opportunities but the time and space to work on your craft and improve

[@ariettej4271]

To explore the role of class would be to not only call herself out or bring attention to her own privilege, but would invite room for people to do so as well… as they likely have been doing for a long time now. And I can understand how it kinda sucks to be called out for something that you had no control over. “Privilege” doesn’t exactly have very good connotations to it. “Privilege” brings to mind of someone having gotten to an undeserving place in life based off of things not of their merit; I would understand at the author’s frustration of people implying that she only got to where she was due to her wealth while dismissing and invalidating the effort she put in and the talent she’s actually had to cultivate. I think Cindy hit it straight on in observing that this book seemed less of a reflective commentary than it is low key a satire about her own experiences. It sure as heck is difficult to confront something that could potentially give room to prove all your haters right.

[@aw7145]

Tbh I felt this in Babel too, I felt like there was no real reflection on class in a particularly meaningful way. And people were talking about it like it was this super revolutionary text, which I never felt. To be fair, I read a lot of leftist theory and I'd heard everything she put in that book already but better and I think people who are saying that... haven't - no shame to those people, I'm glad they're getting introduced to these ideas, but Kuang isn't saying anything new and she didn't really cover these points in a particularly interesting or in-depth way. But the criticisms of colonialism kind of felt half-baked specifically in their relationship to class, which was crazy because of how quite a few of the main characters came from abject poverty. When I read Yellowface I felt that same deficit but stronger, I was kind of flabbergasted that Athena wasn't sort of this secret surprise villain because of the discussions of how wealthy she was early on haha. I think she's a talented writer but class is definitely a pretty consistent blind spot for Kuang

[@luiysia]

@@aw7145athena as a secret villain would have been sooo spicy 🥵

[@aw7145]

@@luiysia there was a part at the very end of Yellowface where (spoilers) the character impersonating her to haunt the main character was like "this isn't about Athena, we all hated that bitch" or something like that and I was like "??? Where was this energy in the rest of the book??" 😄

[@baeticat]

Kuang is a super talented writer, though I'd love to see more nuance in her writing. The critique felt too obvious. Like she doesnt trust her readers to connect the dots themselves.

[@withcindy]

yes, it was very heavy-handed! my fave literary novels are ones that dont give readers the answers or explicitly tell them what to think, but gives us room for own interpretations

[@baeticat]

@@withcindy I agree! I have been reading Babel, but it has the same problem. 😭 It would be more impactful if she's more implicit.

[@SnorriSnibble]

@@baeticatI dnf‘d Babel after 100 pages because of that, it was so annoying. It reads like twitter threads if that makes sense. I wanted to read Yellowface because the premise seems interesting and I only heard good things, but now I‘m not so sure anymore…

[@astronauticaI]

This. This is exactly how I felt after reading her dark academia novel, "Babel". As a whole, I did really enjoy it, but it felt like the author was beating the reader over the head with her critique. By the last third of the book, I felt like raising my hands in surrender and begging, "Okay, okay, I get the message."

[@baeticat]

@@SnorriSnibble I totally get it! Some of the phrasing in the book felt outlandish for the world it was set in. And as for Yellowface, aside from some aspects I did not like, it's highly readable. I flew through it :)

[@frankundercoverdragon6288]

The way yellowface is already out dated bcus of twitter becoming x like twitter discourse is like 1/3 of the book

[@withcindy]

the MC in the book sweats profusely as someone re-X'es a thread canceling her

[@ishika5619]

oh my god you're so right. the problem with extremely social media focused books lmao

[@mah-rokhan6171]

yessssssss and MC illustrating how Athena's twitter is on an upper sort of tier because she mostly only interacted with blue check accs, but now the blue check means nothing

[@charlieh1427]

Not really? It just establishes that the book takes place before that change happened. There’s no obligation for books to pretend they’re always about the very very present day (and they outright shouldn’t try, imo).

[@frankundercoverdragon6288]

@@charlieh1427 I didn't say being out dated as a book is a bad thing I just find it kinda funny, ofc it's impossible to be truly timeless

[@imagenietion]

"the writing was flat and the themes were explored shallowly" is exactly how I felt about Babel 😬.

[@MrKittyKwon]

i have same issue with both babel and this book. she overexplains everything. it's like she thinks her readers are stupid and aren't able to figure anything themselves. no nuance.

[@Morfeusm]

@@MrKittyKwonnot only that but then if you are white it will shame you so not only I felt stupid, disgusting, white male but what I got was pretty shallow and rude. Not saying I didn’t like the book or that book should never make me feel like that. It was just not perfect execution imo but it made me feel disgusting. Not sure if it’s good or bad.

[@anika1883]

Like, instead of writing an actual good book about Chinese colonial history she instead wrote a sh*tty "fantasy" book with a couple of superficial colonial aspects. The idea behind the book had so much potential but i was so incredibly disappointed after reading Babel

[@ChocolatexCherries3]

​@Morfeusm if you read a critique of racist white people and feel "disgusting" then you're admitting you're a racist white person. that's a you issue, not the writing's fault.

[@Morfeusm]

@@ChocolatexCherries3 true but I don’t think I said anything about that being bad. I think I said that’s totally fine but I didn’t like shallowness of the execution and some plot points. Me being or not being racist isn’t the point. I don’t even dislike the book or the author. I just agree with OP opinion that themes were explored shallowly and I pointed one instance I found ridiculous in the book and can say more. I think I actually liked feel disgusted exactly because what you described. I have no issue with that part of the book.

[@juniawetmann1311]

We could even put another layer of analysis on this book and talk in a decolonial view: Just by growing up in the US and being published in the west she already had an advantage over non-western authors.

[@Aya.Tsankova]

Yes! Thank you!

[@yearlywise8003]

Man, this is one of the most insightful book commentary videos I’ve seen in a long time. You’ve outdone yourself, Cindy.

[@withcindy]

thank u!! i hope this doesnt get viewed as hate but more of a discussion starting point

[@smilee2566]

​@@withcindyThis is up there with your book consumerism video, just calling the entire book community out, also the publishing industry and I love it

[@abbykadabby418]

@@smilee2566 which video is that?

[@heatherw.286]

Very insightful and detailed commentary! Check the vocal fry as it strains your voice and removes the emotional nuance that enables your audience to connect. Keep going deep on these reviews - I'm a fan! @@withcindy

[@morenafromthevineyard]

Poor, Mexican girly here! To be honest, I've always stayed away from R. F. Kuang's books because I've always gotten this elitist vibe from her from what people say about her books. Cindy perfectly described the complete contradiction of this book's themes. The book industry is represented as a meritocracy when it clearly is not at all. Class plays such a vital role in where we end up and what opportunities we can have. This needs to be discussed, and thank you so much, Cindy, for doing so.

[@withcindy]

her books are def influenced by academia and her studies which is what makes stories like babel or poppy war work, but since yellowface is her least academic work i'm noticing the shortcomings here

[@ChaosQueenPlays]

Believing in meritocracy in general is a sign of privilege imo (or naïveté, and some would say the ability to be naive is itself, also a sign of privilege). I know the book is satire, but the amount of personal salt gives the vibe that she’s willfully oblivious to the leg-up her parents’ wealth gave her…

[@lesbiangoddess290]

​@ChaosQueenPlays imagine still believing in meritocracy, in 2023? You are so right, her privilege has definitely put a blindfold on her

[@withcindy]

to be fair, i dont think rf kuang believes in meritocracy - i just think that the plot of this particular book oversimplifies the way that publishing works, and without considering things like class and colorism, it veers into unintentionally making it seem like a meritocracy

[@kurapikakurta3863]

I'm sorry but are we speaking about the same book? When did the book ever hinted at the book industry being meritocratic? The book clearly showed that it wasn't or am I remembering the book wrong?

[@Pau1980Pau]

I’m an Asian debut author with a manuscript that all my b-readers and editors LOVE. But I have not been able to get a single agent or publisher to give me a chance or even read my full manuscript. All I’ve gotten is rejections. To say POC authors now have an unfair “advantage” just because agents say they are “open to POC” is a load of horseshit. You are so right. It’s not a meritocracy. I’m sitting here with a great manuscript with no other option but to self-publish. Yet I get to hear white authors complain about my so-called “advantage”.🤨

[@ImagineStory-rw5ks]

The publishing industry is wack, like you see mediocre to bad books get published everywhere and even become NYT bestsellers, most of them are from white authors, yet some people are sitting with unpublished books that are good objectively and never see the light of day. I'm asian too and an aspiring author and I just hope that's not the case for me

[@Pau1980Pau]

@@ImagineStory-rw5ks I hope you have a better experience than I’ve had. I hope that more agents and publishers actually act to change the system to make more fair, but from what I’ve experienced it’s all about what they think can “sell”. An expensive Ivy League education and workshops play a big role, although some authors claim that it doesn’t. I try to see it as impersonal and not a reflection of merit to keep my sanity.

[@bookum]

Interested to read your book!

[@HiHi-lt1cb]

What's your book about?

[@Pau1980Pau]

@@bookum thank you! I’m working on final edits now and aiming to self-publish by the end of this year. I hope (with fear and trembling) Cindy would consider reviewing an indie book like mine in the near future.

[@ritatouilles00]

Kuang really need to step up her character building game bc that’s my biggest issue with all her books: the characters are just caricatures of a message she desperately wants to get across

[@PotatoHero524]

You can get a complete picture of who everyone is in TPW from their introduction lol

[@Mia_M]

That was my issue with TPW. The characters were so flat.

[@deinmom1431]

@@Mia_Mhow were her characters in tpw flat?

[@Mia_M]

@@deinmom1431they never felt remotely real to me just caricatures. And that is how the author portrayed non-Chinese people as caricatures.

[@strawberryorange3755]

Yes, I agree. Her characterisation needs some work.

[@uhh9919]

your line about how the stolen manuscript’s wild success implies that the publishing industry is a meritocracy is such a good point?? u devoured that

[@mariahkatianatan8982]

Although I loved Yellowface, I totally understand where you’re coming from. I do agree that the book felt like the author’s way to pour in all of the criticisms she received and personally, I was living for it. The satire in this book gave me a good laugh and I can feel Kuang having fun in airing out her frustrations from her personal experiences in the publishing industry. However, contrary to what most readers think, this is definitely not an accurate representation of the publishing industry since it’s clearly tainted by the author’s own version of it. That isn’t necessarily wrong, but it would be a big mistake to think of it as anything beyond the satire she intended it to be. As someone who just wanted a fun read, it was a perfect break from my usual preferred genres. But someone like Cindy, who expected something more from the author’s attempt in “criticizing the publishing industry”, it’s definitely a let down.

[@withcindy]

That totally makes sense! I think it works better as a light surface level poking fun at publishing, but I expect it more since it is considered a literary book and rf kuang's capabilities

[@mariahkatianatan8982]

@@withcindy Perhaps I was too biased because I loved all of her previous works that I just automatically loved Yellowface 😂 but reflecting back on the dark themes she has tackled in her past works and how heavily researched they were, Yellowface does fall short. You can still see how talented she is as a storyteller, but Yellowface is definitely not a book that properly exposed the true realities of the publishing industry despite being marketed as such.

[@MarcelleLeiturasPreguicosas]

This is how I felt about this book, but I agree with Cindy that R Kuang can go deeper, as seen in Babel. Maybe she tried to keep things light because of the satirical tone she chose for the story.

[@andreil-g4t]

Babel changed my brain chemistry

[@junainahrahman4156]

​@@andreil-g4tfr and as an Indian I'm so grateful for Ramy's representation since Muslim people barely get any good rep in my country's media.

[@black-moon01]

Honestly this is how it feels to read books (or shows) by authors from the Latino diaspora. They get all the praise for "having made it" on their own countries that they sometimes forget those experiences are real and there's people who live in the countries they treat as fictional who go through all of it on a daily basis. It's just extremely alienating as a foreigner. Emmigrating is an extremely difficult thing to do but it can also be a privilege.

[@withcindy]

This is how I felt when I visited Vietnam this year (where my family is from). It made me think about how vastly different my life would have been, and fewer opportunities I would have had, if my family had stayed in Vietnam and I was born there. But because they immigrated to the US and I was automatically an American citizen at birth, it gave me a significantly different playing field and set of privileges. I wouldn't be where I am now if I had been born elsewhere, and yet we don't get to decide how our circumstances will be

[@katiec.936]

People act like books are intellectual properties above industry drama, but at the end of the day publishers just want to make money the same as movie/TV producers.

[@Maritinylibrary]

Okay but your discussion of how privilege impacts anyone's rise to success, reminded me of a conversation I had with my mom. I immigrated to the US 11 years ago, and I've always expressed how I never fully related to a lot of first-gen immigrants because I always had a lot of privilege. I visited the US previously, I spoke fluent English and a bit of the American culture because my dad is American. I still experienced a lot of bad things just because America doesn't stop being America, but I do think that acknowledging the parts of your life that made your success easier is super important. Mostly because - I believe - it makes you more empathetic to others. I'm happy and grateful for the life I have but I won't sit here and say I got all it through sweat, blood, and tears because I didn't. I had the privilege of having the parents and life I had that allowed me to get here EVEN with the obstacles of being an immigrant.

[@withcindy]

This is how I felt when I visited Vietnam for the first time, where my family is from. I wouldnt have any of my "accomplishments" today if my parents hadn't immigrated to the US

[@EmyN]

Also, it's kinda great when you acknowledge your own privilege lol, when you are aware of it you just accept it and move on, instead of feeling triggered when it is addressed. Like I saw a compilation of responses from celebrities that made use of nepotism when asked about it, most of the younger ones invalidated their advantage and most of the older ones just said "yeah lol", seems like they came to terms with it

[@randomgirlxrulz]

Omg exactly how I feel! I'm technically a "first-gen" immigrant too but I've never lived in India. I've worked hard to get where I am in life, but I know for a FACT my parents' financial support was just as (if not more) instrumental in my success as my own efforts. And I'm okay with that.

[@theefartman]

@@randomgirlxrulzheyy same here! (sort of). second gen indian immigrant! mom survived a military coup, i survived five premium printer-paper cuts.

[@randomgirlxrulz]

@@theefartman Omg I know right? My mom survived a terrorist attack when she was a teenager. Our lives feel so insanely different

[@animeotaku307]

It’s even more disappointing that Kuang didn’t look more into class privilege in publishing when she actually acknowledged how the working class were screwed over by colonialism and the Industrial Revolution in Babel and deconstructed meritocracy in the Poppy War by going into how many obstacles the protagonist faced passing the exam and staying in the war academy compared to her far richer peers. Given that this is her first contemporary novel, part of me wonders (though I hope not) if she just isn’t fully aware of how class privilege continues to exist.

[@withcindy]

she seems well-researched with class issues and isnt afraid of displaying them in her work so i was surprised and disappointed to see this didnt continue in yellowface. i think she does believe class privilege still exists today, but maybe she wanted to stay in her lane & write more specifically to her experiences for yellowface?

[@animeotaku307]

@@withcindy That seems more likely

[@JackDespero]

@@withcindy Or she doesn't feel that she is priviledged and that her hard work is the reason why she is where she is. A lot of priviledge people acknowledge they priviledge, like white people understanding the white supremacist foundation of the US, but then "oh, this has nothing to do with that" or "I am not like the others", etc. Like, she may know about class priviledge, but she may also think that it doesn't apply to her because she is "deconstructed", and she has worked really hard for her success (not saying that she hasn't, but that is the typical automatic defensive position).

[@gnomercy14]

i've loved all of kuang's books, but i completely agree with your review of yellowface! she seems to stick to things she already knows/mirrors her own experiences, and i wish she did more, because i know she's capable of it.

[@withcindy]

Yes! She's more than capable of researching outside her experiences and it would have really improved her craft if she had done so

[@pearll.7876]

You articulated your points so well that I wish you’d written this book.

[@withcindy]

thank you!! i dont think i would have written it as well as kuang but i wouldve loved to be a beta reader or something lol

[@sarahhirsch8919]

This is the coldest burn imaginable: "I was disappointed because we both know you could have done better." God damn. That's the kind of energy I bring to my classroom that makes kids cry.

[@withcindy]

it was not meant to be a burn but praise for her capabilities 😭

[@sarahhirsch8919]

@@withcindy It can be and IS both.

[@TheFreakDownStreet]

“White people are racist and water is wet” got a real good chuckle out of me

[@RED-my9hl]

water is not wet tho 😂

[@isa2010rizzi]

Just to add, the way that she and her team decided to market the book was also a turn off to me. They went with “aren’t Harper Collins stupid for publishing this book that talks shit about them”, and i thought it was so cringe lol yes im sure harper collins is horrified about all the money that they are going to make out of your book

[@withcindy]

and at the same time people were unionizing to get paid a livable wage at harper... lol

[@KL-uv3ts]

Yeah the tiktoks where she encouraged people to buy her Harper Collins-released book during the strike because it supposedly struck a blow against HC was. Honestly I just really wished she hadn't, it felt like she was trying to trick her readers when I don't actually think that was her intent. I understand the need to market her book, possibly it was even in her contract and this was the best she could come up with, but I'm not surprised to read these comments and find she was a debate kid. Because that was SUCH debate kid rhetoric, where actual sense is tossed out the window for style points.

[@isa2010rizzi]

@@KL-uv3ts you said it even better then i did lol I definitely felt like she was insulting my intelligence

[@scremmy_draws]

PLUS she was one of the people speaking out AGAINST HC when the strike was going on, yet still decided to publish with them??

[@isa2010rizzi]

@@scremmy_draws well, im not gonna hold that against her, at the end of the day, its a job, and leaving HC for another publishing company that its just as bad as them wouldn’t matter to me. Sometimes people work in places that are not good, and its not their fault. She supported the strike so good for her. My problem with it its her use of the situation in HC as some type of marketing tactic pretending to be subversive.

[@jaimeerindy4573]

Considering I was not a fan of the heavy-handed and shallow themes in Babel, I'm here for this tea, especially from you because you always do the best job at breaking down these topics imo

[@withcindy]

yeah i dnfed babel, i need to accept kuang's writing is not for me lol

[@jacklemm1518]

@@withcindyI dnfed Poppy war cuz her writing style gave me a headache and it was NOT the book it was advertised as

[@raytrix1]

@@jacklemm1518 I DNFed Poppy War, decided to give Babel a try, and ended up DNFing it as well for the same reasons others have mentioned (heavy-handed, shallow themes). I also think I need to accept that Kuang is not the author for me before I waste any more money...

[@halicusdiaarcan102]

@@raytrix1 me but with yellowface! maybe i'm just small brain but her writing just doesn't have the cadence that usually appeals to me

[@monicamesecar9126]

Disclaimer: Im a cis, straight white woman with a disability. But I just finished YellowFace and it really fell flat for me because I also just read Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou and it dealt with a lot of the same themes in such a nuanced, layered, and intricate way. It also centered an Asian woman’s experience with her identity and white supremacy while also confronting yellow face. The plot was compelling, kept me engaged, and taught me so much and made me examine my own experience with marginalization and biases. It’s one of my top books of the year. After reading that, this was just so surface level and honestly annoying.

[@angelcake318lps]

Thanks for the book rec!!

[@everyonesfavoritesidechara3816]

Thanks for the book rec. i’m also someone with a disability and i haven’t found many books with disabled main characters. Got any recommendations in that vain?

[@huwaw]

Cindy, as an Asian, I just found myself nodding and raising my hand to say, "Amen" after every 30 seconds of this review.

[@ddahlia3607]

the most interesting part of yellowface to me was the part where the deceased writer was getting criticism from other asian writers on if she was allowed to write on mainland experiences while being part of a diaspora. im apart of the african diaspora myself and i think its a very interesting conversation on what people can claim and make art with? i think the book would have been much more interesting than the conversation it went with (bc yea, yt ppl are racist and there’s like no interesting conversation to be had with what you’ve got) if the main character was like 1/8th asian like the irl author in the video and the conversation was based on, what claims can people have to an identity/art made from that identity. there isnt an easy answer to that which would make the book so much more engaging

[@withcindy]

I agree!! What if the mc was mixed, or a white person who grew up in China?

[@miatownsend6088]

im 1/4 asian and always at odds of how much “asianess” i can claim. there are cultural things i grew up with thanks to my chinese grandpa but definitely dont (and wouldnt) go out identifying as chinese. But it would still feel wrong to ignore it alltogether. i think when racial discourse is so black and white it leaves mixed people up in the air as a concept more than real people. but that might be conversation for another time. (just an fyi i identify as latina)

[@jaylankau]

this is such a sophisticated breakdown of the incredibly complex issue of how class is tied with publishing and, honestly, art in general. as someone who graduated from an art school in 2020, my friends and I realized these truths a bit too late. a lot of art schools put these rose-colored glasses on their students to enable them to make what is honestly a very reckless financial decision, thinking hard work and a degree from a school will get you published, or in galleries, or in a full-time job in your industry within the year. the reality is that a lot of the times, it comes down to class privilege, and I did not realize that until I graduated. while I was (and still am) struggling with my writing degree, attempting to juggle creative work with getting a full-time job, I became so curious about what my peers from my class were doing: were they not struggling like I was? were they getting the full-time jobs, and not me? was there something wrong with my work? then when I looked into it, I realized that most of the class from my department in my year were kids from very very wealthy families, who were told to get a degree and got one in writing because they just liked to write or read. they will never actually need to make an income from it or depend on making an income from it, so it can be their hobby without that expectation, while their parents pay for expensive Manhattan apartments lol

[@moomin469]

damn this hit close to home im going into the last year of a level choosing uni courses soon and i am choosing between art or psychology to pursue later but really want to do textile at uni but i’m not from a family with a lot of money😭😭 idk i might do psych instead and art on the side then i guess 😦❤️ anyway your comment and this video brought up very interesting points about class and pursuing art 🤔❤️

[@kirbbb1995]

i'm a black girl who doesn't read much so i'm very excited to hear your perspective on this book!

[@withcindy]

Thank you! Also your Kirby profile picture is so cute

[@kirbbb1995]

@@withcindy AAAA THANK YOU!!! kirby is my favorite video game character!

[@ayceinquisitor190]

folk like "Sarah Anne Smith" find it easier to just be racist than to question authority or wealth. sheer avoidance of hard work and cold truth; if they actually cared, they would fight-not complain on social media for attention.

[@sunnyy_]

This was a very great video! Class privilege is something so prominent and yet so rarely talked about. A few years back, I wrote a paper about the first female firefighter in my country and I had to write about setbacks she encountered, but also about all the things that worked in her favour, such as her family background, place where she grew up, the university she went to, the job she had before deciding to become a firefighter etc. And ever since then, whenever I see someone talking about how they became successful, my brain immediately goes to trying to figure out the full story. But I have to admit, sometimes it's much easier to see the privileges other people have than your own. The neagtives and the obstacles are often such a pain in the ass that we forget to focus on all the privileges and opportunities that we might have going for us. I do wish the conversation about this is more normalized, so people would see that just because someone's talking about your privileges, it doesn't mean that they are diminishing your hard work and your success

[@withcindy]

figuring out the full story of someone's success is a great method of critical thinking! totally agree that it should be more normalized because it also helps point out flawed systems that arent working for people who dont get to benefit from the capitalism lottery

[@MsWOCReader]

Thank you for talking about the model minority and how East Asian authors have an advantage over other authors of color. It's a discussion people are having behind the scenes but I haven't seen anyone really have it openly.

[@woahza3965]

I admire that Cindy doesn’t get jaded about books after she’s read so many bad books. Like do you deal with such disappointments? 😭

[@withcindy]

i wouldnt consider this a bad book! i still enjoyed it if only for the drama LOL

[@alexandraalmanzar570]

@@withcindy I love you Cindy, you a boss.

[@colmkelly72]

I love your content and appreciate your content isn't just these chronically online takedowns but genuinely insightful critique and analysis of books and the writing industry. good stuff

[@withcindy]

Thank you!

[@smilee2566]

You are without a doubt one of the most perceptive, funny and REAL booktubers on this site. Top 3 of all time. Seriously loved this review and it summarised alot of my existing issues with R.F. Kuang's work! I really want to love her books but they miss the mark so often because they all seem to centre a very privileged/upper middle class perspective, and try to talk about key social issues without directly addressing class, wealth and privilege, which you could argue are the most important and universal issues of all. Class and race are inextricably tied and affect everyone globally.

[@withcindy]

Yes! You can't talk about race or oppression without considering class because they are very much linked

[@monodrama6771]

This is exactly how I felt with Babel. Kuang is such an amazing writer but I feel like she sometimes gets stuck writing very shallow/characature-like characters. The characters definitely serve a purpose, but they're so lacking in depth that they become unrelatable and unlikable in the worst way.

[@bbyghostie1044]

I wish she'd written a character that was more nuanced with the racism. It's easy to point to blatantly racist things a person says, but insidious/subtle racism would make for a deeper/more interesting character. I don't know a single white woman who doesn't like Chinese food (it's even a movie trope for a sad white girl to order Chinese food and then eat a tub of ice cream) or know what dumplings are. I think a better direction to go would to be describing how the character enjoys cherry picked aspects of Chinese culture (like Chinese food in america) but also has subconcious biases. I think there was a window there for discussing how Minorities are often only valued for what they can provide white society and then denied the credit. Shallow seems like the right word for the characterizations

[@lazydroidproductions1087]

Yeah. This video reminds me of an essay that a black author wrote that I read last year, unfortunately I can’t remember who but it was during a creative writing class and it was one of the few if not the only essay about how to write that I genuinely agreed with and enjoyed (we were luckily not expected to agree with them all we were supposed to compare and discuss them). Basically she talked about one time where she wrote a racist old white woman in one of her stories and was happy with it but then a friend who read it basically told her it was a trash character and so after a few more rewrites she came to realize that she had to write even this antagonistic bigot from a place of love so that the character can feel real, that even characters you deeply and fundamentally disagree with you have to understand who they are as you write them and “get” where they’re coming from, or something like that. This protagonist sounds like she was written with nothing but spite in mind

[@lou-xr5rz]

I disliked Babel so much it's put me off reading her other works. The characterisation is just appalling, like genuinely awful, but Kuang is so hyped up it's like you're not allowed to criticise her. Which is why I'm so grateful for this video.

[@LillyTVLPS]

babel and it’s repetitive spoon-feeding of basic knowledge is the reason why i probably won’t be picking up her other stuff :( it was so surface level, i cant believe people view it as a remarkable original commentary

[@marshmellow_melmel]

While I'm definitely not as privileged as RF Kuang is, I am a lot more privileged than a lot of people I know. While I am a queer Asian woman, I also grew up in a middle class family that was able to provide me with a comfortable life AND is willing and able to currently pay for my college tuition. It's easy to dismiss how your class affects you when you fall under marginalized identities, but, no matter what identity you fall under, it's imperative to acknowledge your own privilege. I do hope Kuang watches this video and is able to take your criticisms with an open mind, especially since you're also an Asian woman.

[@ellso1922]

I don't know if RF Kuang was a UK resident, but if not it cost a lot more than 9 grand to go to Oxford and Cambridge as a foreigner at around £28,000 - £40,000

[@withcindy]

ohh i didnt know that! she was raised in the US so i dont think she is a UK resident

[@kaleyburchette]

hearing someone actually go in depth on a book review with critical thinking thoughts is actually SO refreshing. i loved this! keep up the great work 🩵

[@withcindy]

thank u! im glad it was in depth

[@pamreyes8036]

I’ve loved other books by RF Kuang (mainly The Poppy War), but I recently read this book and was extremely disappointed. Excited to hear your thoughts!

[@WhtSnwRvn]

Same. Loved tpw series, but disliked this one.

[@withcindy]

I've read similar thoughts from ppl who enjoyed TPW! I think kuangs strengths are in her historical research to support the story

[@priscachoi7530]

I cant believe cindy went from only borrowing library books, to having her own booktuber bookshelf background~ we love the character development ❤❤

[@withcindy]

Haha it's bc I'm subleasing another booktuber's apt right now!

[@jackiejeffords2932]

@@withcindy pfft I really thought “those remind me of Monica’s shelves” and then I read this 😭😭

[@Journal_Jonesy]

I honestly thought everyone in that book was horrible in different ways. Athena used June's rape experience as her own story, started fights with her boyfriend for inspiration, as well as mocking people for making "another immigrant book". June was racist, jealous and stole from a dead woman. Candace couldn't maintain boundaries with authors and decided to photoshop pictures of a dead woman for her own financial goals.

[@LizApizaa]

Your logical consistency and nuance are extremely satisfying. I need to learn how to articulate my points like you do. Came for literary criticism and left with a role model!

[@withcindy]

thank u!! ive had a lot of time to think about it lol and i still am considering other things about the book (both positive and negative) based on comments from those who have read it too

[@journalsbyjennifer]

as an asian privileged highschool student and aspiring writer, this kind of hit close to home

[@withcindy]

Big oof

[@tiffanykim2773]

You're Asian AND privileged? 😮 That exists?????

[@cashcashmoney]

^

[@Iza56]

It doesn't matter, follow your dreams🙂

[@intergalactic-oboist]

You can’t change your privileges, and therefore having them is morally neutral. Using it to uplift those less fortunate than you and not wasting opportunities given to you is what defines you as a person, not the circumstances of your birth. You’re not inherently a bad person for being able to pursue a career you enjoy. Recognizing your privilege is an important step in making the world a more equitable place.

[@elizabethc2496]

"If you want to be a full time author, but you're a poor bitch, forget about that shit." Man, you just spoke to my heart. I recently had to accept this as a fact. Along with the realities of being a Black writer (or any other writer from a marginalized group). So I threw up a peace sign to the idea of traditional publishing and self publish with joy now. I'm writing a thriller with a Black protagonist, and I'm daring to make it about everything BUT race lol.

[@yaoifujoshi5825]

I’m also self-publishing too!! (I’m black, lesbian, and disabled)!😭😭 I’ve accepted years ago that Ill probably never get trad published

[@Nadine944]

It's worth-mentioning that we are talking only about USA or/and other English-speaking countries. And in general, every writer whose books are originally published in English automatically has more chances of becoming an international bestselling author. It is an enormous priviledge itself.

[@merveakinci9102]

I’m Turkish, very weird in the middle geographic location, hence race. Never know what to select on job applications. I do understand some parts of racism as I experienced, but also I look white so I cannot speak fully. Even I loved the book, while listening you I realised how groundling my comments were. Such a great commentary, with backed details. I’m very surprised with how she used the critics she was facing as thoughts of a bad white writer, who we hated so much so kind of felt sad for rich privileged Athena. Thank you for this video, broadened my perspective.

[@henrywayne5724]

Have I ever read a Kuang book? No. But man am I seated with a glass of wine and enjoying the discussion!

[@withcindy]

Glad you can still enjoy!

[@summercucumber4964]

Lisa gew up in a Chinese community and close to her Chinese family, so I definitely understand her wanting to write about that part of her herritage. She also does a lot of research for her work. I'm really thankful that more people of color are getting their stories out there, but there's still a ton of work that needs to be done before the literary and publishing world is anywhere near being an even playing-field.

[@withcindy]

I think Lisa See is an interesting case because she's close to her Chinese family and yet her white-passing appearance gives her a different set of opportunities, and publishing and awards have favored her over other Asian American voices. This is a systemic issue rather than an individual one, but the interesting thing is that everyone will have a different opinion on how much leeway an individual can have to benefiting in a flawed system

[@SilentTrip]

we subconsciously write ourselves in our books, no matter how much we change the characters and detach, there is always a piece of us there. The death of an artist is never real

[@kendragarcia8175]

Also just a note as a PhD student without Kuang’s advantages (😢) we get paid and do not pay tuition, that’s why she has to pay taxes. I complain about them too tbh mainly because it’s usually thousands of dollars and for those of us without rich parents (and not at Yale…) it can be a lot Also of course her book ultimately upholds the idea of a meritocracy, rich people who’ve had advantages early in life always seem to fall for that myth.

[@teashay5673]

You brought up a similar issue that I had with Babel. RF Kuang is very good at writing things that she is familiar with or has experienced for herself, but in writing about those things she's unable to let go of her reader's hand because she thinks we wouldn't understand what she's saying otherwise. It made for an frustrating reading experience. With Babel specifically you see her oscillate between wanting to write about what she knows (i.e her experience in higher academia) vs wanting to say something new. I think she ultimately fails to do the latter because the magic system she builds in Babel does not fundamentally change anything; it's only there to be toppled in the end because meaningful critique requires Kuang to dissect the real world systems that she benefits from. The part about her background honestly explains so much in retrospect

[@withcindy]

I DNFed babel, so ur comment about that book's shortcomings is really interesting! I wonder if it is possible for someone who benefits from a system to still create something that meaningfully critiques that system? I like to think it's possible to write outside our experiences, but as humans we have so many blind spots that I wonder to what extent would research make up for this to be adequate enough, or will people always be limited by the scope of their lived (and even sheltered) experiences?

[@withcindy]

Adding onto this, it's also why a white person writing about POC trauma doesn't work bc they've never lived it. There can be research and dialogue about these topics to help inform their craft, but they've never experienced those things and benefit from those systems instead, which limits their scope. I wonder if the same applies to "rich", upper middle class people writing about poverty and classism. At the same time tho, I think about how limiting it sounds for someone to only be able to stick to their lived experiences for their craft, and I want to believe people are capable of expanding outside their boundaries

[@bicho6313]

I genuinely believe that this is not a literary novel but a suspense and it's more enjoyable if you read it that way. You can tell by the writing style, the tone, and the plot. Its a good suspense novel but a poor literary one and I blame the marketing. Her team seems to be pushing her and her latest books as literary for some reason (her academic background I guess?) even though she would be much better appreciated as a genre author because that's what she writes and well.

[@withcindy]

That's a good point! I wish her team let her stick to genre writing cuz this was def not literary

[@androphobe]

This!

[@mhawang8204]

This! I totally read this book as a crime thriller. A “howcatchem” suspense, if you will.

[@teifan6674]

So sad to hear that Cindy committed unaliving by 2 bullets to the back of her head 😥

[@withcindy]

😭😭😭 RIP

[@junainahrahman4156]

"unaliving" -💀

[@teifan6674]

@@junainahrahman4156 I have to dodge yt censorship somehow

[@quirkyblackenby]

KZbin doesn’t monitor comments like tiktok.

[@SapphireChristella]

This is a really interesting and nuianced review. I really appreciate you taking the time to break this down as someone who’s not in the book world but loves to read and hear people talk about books. Also as a black women who grew up being close friends with and working for a Chinese American family who was much wealthier than my family I have complex feelings about marginalized identities and wealth. I was abused by and taken advantage of by the adults in that family and my friend couldn’t help. I want to be a good ally to other marginalized communities but it’s complicated and class is a huge issue. I appreciate it when creators of all color speak about the nuisances of their experiences and all of our different types of privileges wrapped up in our individual oppression. Real allyiship comes from intense uncomfortable honesty.

[@withcindy]

i'm so sorry you went through that. thank you for sharing how complicated it can be to be both marginalized and see other marginalized communities benefit from the flawed systems that failed you!

[@elinorwahl8619]

One really bewildering thing about Yellowface is that Kuang said in an interview that she wrote a white protagonist because 'Fiction should be about imagining outside our own perspectives, stepping into other people’s shoes and empathizing with the other.' That's just plain disingenuous, because she's blatantly uninterested in empathizing with June. The character is a warped mirror that Kuang is using to paint a flattering portrait of her fictional avatar Athena, who, having died tragically and young, is shielded from criticism by the audience's guilty obligation to mourn her.

[@Nana-hz2tr]

😂 the fuck, did you read this book?Athena is not painted in a good light. June is given empathy and some redeeming qualities, she’s just too delusional and ignorant that it outweighs her better parts. I swear y’all just open your mouth to say shit

[@lilachrysanthemum7281]

I'm asian american and grew up in a wealthy family, but both my parents were born and raised below the poverty line. my dad and his siblings were the first in his whole family lineage to go to college, his dad was the first generation to go to formal education at all. So they have a lot of sense of what the different classes' cultures are like, how different countries' cultures are like. Growing up in a rich town, I was never really aware of the privileges that I had that other people didn't, because all the people surrounding me had seemingly similar backgrounds. There were even a good amount of other asian-americans in my grade (most of them were half). Then when I got to college, I realized just how different that people's backgrounds can be, different personalities, everything, and it really opened my eyes. I have three best friends, and two of them are black/mixed living on the poverty line, and one is a very wealthy international student from southeast asia. Like I understand I'm wealthy, but that friend is RICH. It's incredibly humbling to see people who you've only seen in news articles or through the mouths of petty, generationally-wealthy, elitist people, being real people with nuance and character. It made me rethink my beliefs a lot. They're my best friends, I see them as people before I see them as a statistic. There are things they do or characteristics they have that I seriously admire because I can't do those things, or I've never had to face before. And I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be able to see all these different stories and lifestyles. Getting a little back on topic, if I were to write some story on racial commentary like RF Kuang back in high school??? Yallready KNOW how disconnected to reality my story would be. I mean, I would probably sound like those street interviews where they ask teenagers from like beverly hills how much the average american salary is. Maybe not that severe but you get my point. It makes sense why RF Kuang would write like this, because she lives in such a bubble. That's not an excuse of course, but gives some perspective on her privilege, and she could just be so comfortable in her bubble she's never bothered to look outside of it, or doesn't want to. If I were her, I would think that she would've grown up learning about a lot of the political corruption within her socio-economic circle. I'm sure if she looked into her peers, literally just her peers and the circle she has been surrounded by for all her life, she would be able to make quite an interesting story about those kind of themes. Like manipulation as marketing tactics, political corruption, power-hungry individuals or companies, abusing power to silence people and keep everyone in place, the unsteady and fragile stasis, all ready to completely shatter at the tiniest breath. I think that would be such an interesting take, because first off not a lot of people are in that exact situation, so they get to learn a lot about what the top 1-5% are living like but also they can see the humanity of that top few percent and be like "Hey, I do see these themes in my life/circle too!" or at least can connect to the character's feelings and motivations and just see the world in a new light. That underneath all the money and fancy suits, we're all just people. Maybe we have different abilities, sure, but circumstances really play a huge huge role in your sitting in society. I'm in no way the smartest, or prettiest, or most well-spoken, or charming, or perfect person. But I get a lot of opportunities due to my circumstances and privilege. I work hard, yes, but give a harder worker the same opportunity as me and they'll blow me out of the water lol. Put a more charming and better-spoken/eloquent person in my position with my resources and they'll become the damn president. I got to my current position through hard work and having some ability like being book-smart, but by no means could I have gotten here through those alone. I also think maybe the reason her series on ancient china gets more leeway is because it's so detached from everyone, that no one in the audience has any expectations on whats realistic or not, so it doesnt show as obviously how out-of-touch she may be with reality. But when she writes about something we all have some footing and grounding in, it becomes glaringly clear that she is not connected to the rest of the world. I think she and other authors that come from privileged situations, including me, really need to take a step back and see the bigger picture. And we need to see how everyone fits into the bigger picture, how everything affects everything, and how things are not black and white, they're SO nuanced, and we need to remember that people are individuals.

[@esolofoni]

Absolutely love your refreshing takes on mainstream books. As a Tongan person who comes from a poor background, I've resolved to self-publishing my debut novel and there is so much work and so little sleep. But it's a real passion project and hearing all of your insights and thoughts about publishing is really heartening and I'm going to keep pursuing my dreams (while keeping my 9-5 job, hahah). Fantastic review by you as always.

[@withcindy]

good luck with your novel!!

[@tonystonem9614]

Have u published it yet ?

[@esolofoni]

@@tonystonem9614 My debut novel is coming out in 3 days! 🥰

[@WealthisoftheMind]

You are one of my favorite Booktuber, we have similar taste. I did not finish Yellowface. I hated Tender is the Flesh. You are my in head book buddy.

[@withcindy]

tender is the yellowface

[@laurenm3148]

Thank you so much for this. I too was really unsettled by the lack of deep critique about class by an author of her background writing about these issues. It doesn't surprise me that June's supposedly middle-class background is so empty and unconvincing, because when your life is enmeshed in private, elite schools, you don't have a concept of what middle class even is. What's frustrating is that because it's satire, she falls back on caricature instead of tackling class in an actually meaningful way. I was feeling really isolated in my dissatisfaction until I found this video. So well said!

[@yooo9480]

Is she middle class? I'm reading this book and I remember it having a line about how June's grandpa paid for her Ivy League uni which is def outside the middle class imo.

[@laurenm3148]

@@yooo9480 Totally agree with you that her grandparents paying for Yale totally undermines her middle class background. I could've *sworn* though that June mentions a few times how they were not moneyed, but I returned the book to the library and can't find textual evidence. Good point though! I think that definitely complicates things and underlines how unreliable she is! Maybe she's clinging to this "middle class" narrative while all the while she may actually have just as much access to privilege as Athena, but we don't know it because June holds on the information back. Interesting!

[@Hippolyta.]

so I've seen RF Kuang speak irl and she addressed the fact that readers see Athena as a self-insert character but she dispelled that. Odd though, that Cindy listed numerous similarities and Rebecca refuses to publically acknowledge them

[@WingCommanderVinyaya]

Thanks for this! I sped-read Yellowface for class related reasons today. Your review really clarified and seconded something that's been bugging me since I put the novel down; it's the way that June...really has nothing to her aside from her villain qualities. Like, aside from being a portrait of white privilege, white anxiety, white privilege, white envy...who is she? She has no friends, no firm convictions or passions, no significant relationships...we get a backstory but it has functionally zero impact on her day to day life and the choices she makes. So she really comes across as *incredibly* 2D, just this very scared and envious and indeed racist woman, who is really resentful. And...that's a cartoon, not a character.

[@TheBedroomMuse]

I can’t wait for your book Cindy. Not only are you hilarious but you speak so eloquently and you literally put my own confusing thoughts on the book in such a clear and concise way.

[@withcindy]

my future book will prob be a hot mess so it will be my turn to be flamed

[@a.b.2405]

@@withcindyI’m going to love it anyways 😂

[@alina4619]

I used to read Lisa See's books as a kid, and I assumed she must have recent chinese heritage, or be a 1st gen chinese immigrant. She was actually a stepping stone to getting me interested in learning chinese history. I held that assumption until like 2 months ago when i went into B&N and picked up one of her promoted books and saw her picture on the back. And i was like maybe she's white passing (im also white passing), so i googled her background. I dunno man, people can write about whatever they want, and she writes well enough from what I remember, but the fact that most of her work is chinese historical fiction makes me feel weird. It's silly to "gatekeep" heritage, but it feels like she's capitalizing on an aspect of her family history that can be exotified for western audiences. I dunno, i have mixed feelings on this.

[@Ashley-gq9xy]

Honestly I feel very stupid, but I didn't realize she's mostly white until this video 😭 it does lead to a weird feeling about her work

[@withcindy]

i have mixed feelings as well bc she considers herself to be asian but i find it odd that a 1/8 asian person writes EXCLUSIVELY about the trauma of asian women in history :\

[@drewberry4534]

I feel as a white woman, I don't have the right to speak on the appropriateness of her writing exclusively on that topic. I did also think she was a quarter Chinese (I thought I remembered reading that her earliest novels were based on her grandfather's experiences, but I may have misremembered). However, I do want to state that she appears to do a lot of research for her novels. She mentions a real dressmaker in Shanghai Girls, but had misspelled her name. It was either adding an additional t or removing one from the end of the name, but she put a correction on the spelling of the name, and discussed the mistake in the pages where she discussed her research in the sequel to Shanghai Girls. I am admittedly a fan of Lisa See's novels, and trying to put that bias to the side here, but I felt like it was important to state that regardless of some of the ethics, she seems to at least be doing her due diligence. I am doing my best to not overstep here, because obviously I am not the one affected by any issues that arise from this, but I apologize if I did so.

[@withcindy]

@@drewberry4534 thank u for sharing all of that context! this is why i think the topic of "who gets to write about X" is interesting because of all these different nuances

[@alina4619]

@@drewberry4534 thanks for your input, proper research is definitely important. I was a big fan of her as well but fell off due to how much trauma there is in the books. But I think maybe I'll try to pick up her work again now that I'm an adult.

[@seancatacombs]

The book would've been twice as spicy and interesting if the main character was half-asian with close proximity to whiteness, exploring what the cutoff point is for being able to posture as having lived experience of things you're--OOPS never mind you just mentioned Lisa See, you know it.

[@withcindy]

Yes agreed! Or what if the white person had grown up in Asia? Or studied extensively about it? What's the degree between cultural appreciation vs fetishization?

[@gabbygabbygabbyoioioi]

This book genuinely just seemed like an incredibly long diary entry where the author got to have all her ‘you guys don’t like me cause I’m rich and “well-educated”’ and “only jealous Beckys have a problem with the harmful Taiwanese rep I have in my books or how I’m a rich person profiting off writing about the plight of the working class” and then she got paid for that diary entry after framing it a lil different lol.

[@galerights8983]

give this woman a bottle of water omg!! she’s been spitting facts throughout the whole 30 minutes period

[@sophiaisabelle027]

We appreciate your thoughts, Cindy. You have great insights.

[@withcindy]

I appreciate that!

[@Leo-gq1yi]

as much as i love the jokes, the seriousness that cindy can bring is so nice

[@sundawg911]

Here for the mid rant about the experience among the Asian community and how SA and SEA are often overlooked!! I liked the Poppy wars but after Babel I was like RF Kuang thinks we are dumb cause she not subtle with her writing. Like we get it. Racism is bad. So I feel like I'll prob feel the same way with how I felt about Babel. There are lot to read but not enough deep dive into it to give me something beyond just the shallow narrations we often see/read.

[@ivak8614]

I actually am now questioning my own reading of Yellowface LOL, I've seen June get referred to as a caricature in other reviews as well and actually disagree on that part; there are def a lot of white people who think exactly like her down to her comically racist inner monologues. But the point you made about how there's no need to have so many examples of that made me wonder as well why Rebecca would keep showcasing June's racism so heavy-handedly. Maybe she thought that otherwise, June would be too sympathetic to white readers? I wasn't aware of Rebecca's background at all before this review and so maybe that affected how I perceived June: I actually thought she was being presented as a reliable and valid critic of Athena's class background, who lost her credibility only when she ventured into race related criticisms. Probably the moment from the book that made me think this way was when June spends her new book money on a doctor's appointment just for the hell of it, and luxuriates in the ability to have her health checked without any concerns about money. And from that point on, I stopped seeing Athena as a 1-dimensionally "good" character-because June's class background became meaningful. The end of book also jams in a lot of criticism of Athena's character, I believe, through the publishing assistant that tells June that Athena WASN'T seen as a perfect figure by other east asian people in the publishing industry, but that June was blinded by racism and thus unable to perceive Athena through an intersectional perspective. June hated Athena's race, and Athena's ACTUAL privileges were just afterthoughts to that in June's mind. Huge sidenote: you mention Japanese/Chinese/Korean stories as being privileged above other East and South Asian stories. I actually have a theory that this is because the people who have the means to move to another country and live a normal or comfortable life tend to already be wealthy back "home". China/Japan/Korea are technically developed countries so in the US, they emerge as the most "successful" even though it turns out to be another effect of class/wealth. There are probably so many socioeconomically underprivileged Japanese, Chinese, and Korean writers that get left behind bc people think that they aren't underprivileged, since the wealthiest of them are able to find success easily.

[@soymikleo]

ive read all of her work, but u rlly hit the nail on the head. rf kuang has consistently written characters as mouthpieces in all her books 😭🫡

[@withcindy]

which is also one of my biggest pet peeves when i read a book djskaldlksa

[@radiyasidialiyu9281]

Could you explain more, I did not notice this in the poppy war

[@spenceee09]

I feel like Kuang should have had the white woman take the manuscript and still change her name and all that stuff, but then the book ended up flopping despite it's great writing. I think that would've been better at showing the way having money helped Athena succeed rather than it being based on her race. That could've been a good way to have the main character re-examine her prejudices and feelings, and realize she's been angry over the wrong things this whole time - and that like you said sometimes having a great story doesn't matter if you don't have the right connections. But of course that would mean that Kuang would have to admit that she's so successful in part because of her family's money...

[@anyalazor7978]

As a mixed person, i often think about how i am mostly white passing and therefore experience racism very rarely and how different my experience is from the experiences of other asian people. Also as a poor person who used to want to become a full time writer before i became disabled, I'm glad you talked about the classism in publishing. Im also from a developing country so yeah, becoming a full time writer is unreachable for me right now. And it sucks that the voices of so many people are never heard because of classism racism emperialism etc. Ah.

[@momokaharu1671]

This was a very insightful watch! Personally, as someone who is an Asian minority (in an Asian minority, in an Asian minority lol), I definitely agree that there should be more discussion on the intersectionality between class and race! Personally, I understand why R.F. Kuang would write from her perspective, but someday I hope that there are more books exploring themes of ethnic discrimination within Asian spaces. Overall, great review :)

[@kid-ava]

one thing I appreciate about your channel and this video especially is how you acknowledge intersectionality and the privileges that ANYONE could have. it's easy for people to look at their life experiences and see that as all their life and life in general is and ever will be, when things all have nuance! I'm a black queer teen girl writer (all things that may cause obstacles in publishing one day), but I also have a heap of privileges that other folks may not get to ever dream of experiencing, and acknowledging that is okay. things are never just black and white (pun intended lol) 💜

[@withcindy]

thank u so much! i think it's important to recognize privileges and gives u more perspective of how the world operates, esp when we consider what we can do for others who haven't had the opportunities we've had

[@nocturne6032]

There's a Publisher's Weekly interview with R.F. Kuang from a few years ago which is particularly enlightening. It's to promote the release of the final book in The Poppy War Trilogy and she says she hasn't touched her book money yet. 🙃 The interviewer also makes a deliberate reference to the Yale sweatshirt she's wearing. You know how sometimes an interviewer wants to say something but can't, so they use coded language or make deliberate choices about what to include? Yeah. I kind of got the impression with the article. 😅🙂

[@andre1482000]

This... this is making insanely good sense to me. Probably the most thoughtful critique I've ever seen on BookTube. Here take my subscribe.

[@withcindy]

Thanks for listening!!

[@Mj-lr3nc]

There's a play called Yellow Face by David Henry Hwang that premiered in 2007 that has a SUSPICIOUSLY similar plot to this book (albiet much more nuanced and interesting imo). An Asian author writes a play about whitewashing in the theater industry and mistakenly casts a white guy, thinking he's part Asian. They change the white guy's name, the play closes, and then the white guy continuous to pretend to be Asian, becoming a prolific activist. I would LOVE to hear Cindy's take on this.

[@vanshooky3875]

tbh if r.f kuang actually decided to critique the publishing industry further and more incisively, there would probably be no book in the first place. yellowface works bc the author draws a clear line between the black and the white-there are no shades of grey anywhere. privilege, on both sides, has been handled quite poorly. second, even if yellowface objectively falls flat in its attempt to draw an accurate picture of the publishing world and its farce of a "meritocracy", it will still work well. it will still sell hundreds of thousands of copies, because she's already an established author, and the huge success of her debut trilogy almost definitely contributes to the success of yellowface too.

[@kinrateia]

I also want to say if it was an actual critique on the industry, if it was... Industry wouldn't be pushing this book. And it was. It was pushing it hard. Like official pages and articles kind of hard. That's great! It's a great signifier of her success, but how can critique call itself true if it's target is absolutely enamored by it and benefits from hyping it's sales up?

[@urviyi]

They’re enamored by it because publishing is full of hypocrites. Kaung might have known she had an instant bestseller on her hands due to her reputation. Honestly, I find it hilarious that the same people making Yellowface into a bestseller are probably the same people who hyped up American Dirt and made it into a bestseller. It’s like Kuang wrote a scathing reflection of publishing and practically forced them to read it.

[@AsdfAsdf-mi6ks]

I was just thinking about that. If she really wanted to put a dig in the industry, the editor would be like “uhhh”. So I wonder how many of these choices are here and how many are the editors/publisher?

[@violinsFTW]

I really liked this book, but I totally agree with you that they inserted Athena's class as a talking point and then it was never mentioned again. And that was something that definitely gave me pause. I think it's easy to get caught up in the storm of positive reviews that a book has, which I think I definitely did, so I really appreciate your review for giving me a reminder to think again about the book and acknowledge some of the points you made. As a South Asian woman I often find myself being completely left out of the Asian diaspora discussion so thank you for your shout out! As always, I love your videos

[@QuicklyLiquid]

This. THIS is why I love cindy so much. Spitting facts, thinking logically, and discussing things, not to get clout or to go along with the group, but because she genuinely believes it

[@bethharkins3352]

You're an idiot

[@tony_starch]

You summed up all of my own thinking with this video. Rebecca seems like a sweet person, but it was off putting to see how she diminishes all of her own criticism by having the racist Becky voice it. This book could have been so much more than just Twitter Discourse: The Book

[@zaink.7243]

you were already iconic but having authors name drop you/immortalize you in their book is something else lol you're giving cultural icon, culture critic(but an actual one with knowledgeable & thoughtful opinions)... like if this was the y2k era, you would have your own NYT column & people would wait for The Cindy Opinion after movies, shows, & books came out. (we get so little media critique that comes through a based (leftist, progressive, feminist, "not in to lazy boomer/gen x tropes", whatever we want to call it) lens. i hope those call outs never discourage you)

[@withcindy]

thank you!! ironically while i get very picky about books, i'm much more lax with movies and shows lol