"Not sure why the cover on Amazon is missing the 'o' from 'of', since it's correct on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, but it's not like I expect quality control standards from anyone publishing AI-generated books.



At least this one admits it's all AI on the copyright page. But then why the hell does the description say, "With soft watercolor illustrations"? LIES! That's all AI-generated books are. Lies that an ounce of talent or skill or care for the audience went into them. Lies that they're remotely appropriate for your child.

PARENTS: BEWARE OF ANY BOOK PUBLISHED AFTER MARCH 25, 2025 THAT SAYS IT HAS WATERCOLOR ILLUSTRATIONS or looks anything like this one in style. That's when the ChatGPT image generator that produces this look launched.

I think I know what the stray "f" on the cover stands for: Fuck all the way off with AI generated books, especially AI slop for children. "

"Madelein L'Engle said, "You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children." If Rebbeca Kuang saw this quote, she must have mixed it up because she wrote this book as though it's meant for children who want to graduate to adult fiction.

Yellowface is an unsubtle, hammer-to-the-forehead quasi-treatise about the dangers of White Women. Those villainised hacks who never see how what they're doing is wrong. They're Karens, but they voted for Biden. No really, June Hayward says she is a Democrat, and liberal, and voted for Biden multiple times within the book. Hayward a mediocre author who is friends (and we're not really convinced why) with a Chinese American literary star Athena Liu who dies suddenly after a pancake goes down the wrong hole, and Hayward is too inept to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre.

After this, Hayward steals Liu's manuscript about Chinese laborers forcefully conscripted by the French during World War 1. The caucasity is unsurprising, trite, and racist covering all the beats we experienced every time we covered Discourse about films like The Blindside, Hidden Figures Greenbook, and books like The Help, or American Dirt.

This book is not funny, it's not particularly well-written, with a literal typo in the first few pages The editor who did got fired,. The narrative is repetitive and disjointed, like puzzle pieces forced together from different boxes. There were scenes where June's narration is simply exhausting. I have to remind Athena this every single time. She has a goldfish’s memory when it comes to my problems—it takes two or three repetitions for anything to stick. First of all, Rebecca, goldfish don't have short memories. Some can keep them for years. Secondly, you already said this multiple times. We aren't "goldfish", we aren't sieves. We don't need incessant spoonfeeding about something you already said. In the opening stints, June mentions how her debut was left to languish by her editor at the pathetic imprint that was the only one that gave her a chance. It didn't need to be repeated. It also speaks to a certain lack of, perhaps, awareness by Rebecca about how publishing classifies books. When they acquire a manuscript, the books are then delineated, and different budgets are assigned to the books based on what they think will be most profitable. In the current environment, poorly written horny romantasy, AI and climate change scare stories, American POC history and struggle porn, badly written romance, and whatever book Booktok bestows its benevolent virality are the ones most likely to get publishing buzz.

Majority of the authors are very white, very North American, or very British. June's lack of awareness of how publishing works spoke more to Rebecca's ignorance or laziness. And ultimately, her scapegoating of publishing "wanting diverse stories" rings hollow. Maybe this story would have been better if June had whitewashed a literary navel-gazing story about vulnerability and identity.

Beyond the amateurish prose that suffered from sudden bursts of Thesaurus-itis, for example, on Pg. 6 Rebecca writes, It’s so fucking arbitrary. Or perhaps not arbitrary, but it hinges on factors that have nothing to do with the strength of one’s prose. then on Pg. 102 Can't we all get behind decrying antimiscegenation? June also says Athena's prose is repetitive while her monologues feel like a scratched CD. One could argue that Rebecca is trying to show how June is unaware of her lack of talent but you can't help but wonder if she is just a serviceable writer. The book takes pains to be accessible for mass audiences. Rebecca also wants to explain every little detail such as ARCs and sensitivity readers-jargon everyone who is involved in The Community would know. June even goes on a diatribe when discussing a potential movie deal and says, Accessibility matters. and when undressing the stolen manuscript that's "difficult" to read, she says, It’s distracting from the central narrative. Reading should be an enjoyable experience, not a chore. Is this satire or Rebecca explaining why the prose is so bland and repetitive.

My suspension of disbelief was unwilling and abused by how ridiculous some of the events in publishing happen. When June mentions the Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Choice Awards more times than more prestigious ones, I couldn't help but wonder if Rebecca doesn't understand literary Oscars season or if she was trying to pander to Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Choice Awards voters (this book will definitely be listed under Best Fiction). The GCAs are a popularity contest. Rarely do people read all the books listed, they only vote for what they loved. Additionally, no discerning reader who wants a book about Chinese labourers in WW1 would give a fuck about GCAs.

Or is this a 4D chess Trojan horse where readers are actually being unwittingly tested as a focus group? Some people will prefer a female friendship story where race dynamics are explored (The Hate U Give), or perhaps they will want a thriller involving authors and books (Too Close To Home by Linwood Barclay), a meta narrative about who gets to tell a story (Bad Art Friend), a serial plagiariser (look up Jumi Bello), or Asian American nonfiction (Minor Feelings) and Rebecca can pick her next project. Maybe Rebecca is staging herself as the host of the round table to discuss whether authors should interact with reviews. But as we saw with Lauren Hough, the answer is still no.

There was also a glaring pattern where June kept pointing out Athena's flaws. How she was once the actual bad art friend, how Twitter Hot Take enthusiasts called her a race traitor. But we never get to delve into that because June believes no one is that deep into Chinese history or politics. Great job, Rebecca. You have shut down your critics for the lack of nuance in Asian history and characters in Babel. Athena is so offensively superficially written that I almost wished we had gotten her point of view, as a villain who wants to step on all faces to the top of the literary throne. The few snippets we get of her prose show she's a much better writer than June and her narration would have been more palatable than June's weapons of mass boredom.

There's a certain Discourse we're supposed to have from this book about Bad White Women, and how publishing serves to silence writers of colour. We also have to discuss who gets to tell certain stories. The problem is, we have spoken about this ad nauseum. So who is this book for? Outsiders who would like to know how it works? Adults who wanted a meta vivisection of this insular world but with Dark Themes?

Rebecca doesn't know. She says it's a thriller examining the idiosyncracies of publishing. It's not thrilling. And it has a myopic view of how publishing works. About good intentions that went poorly when June always set out to usurp Athena's work from the jump? It's not satire. It's a reverse Künstlerroman. Why is it necessary? The book doesn't tell you because it ends like a flaccid plateau. Not only is it boring, but it's just a meme of a clueless White Woman."