05/06/2026
Yellowface is Kuang's fifth novel and first foray outside of her usual fantasy works. It's a breezy and propulsive read, and a satirical thriller that exposes the cutthroat nature of the publishing industry, plagiarism, and cultural appropriation.
From a perosnal point of view, how can the publishing industry navigate issues of cultural appropriation and balance representation? How many stories about the same cultures and time periods can be sold? Who gets to publish them? How much value do we put in cultural roots over research?
When there is competition, someone has to lose. It is not always obvious who but someone always does. Some stories are just seen as more promising than others.
Publishers are ones who decide how many copies to print, whether it will be just hardcover or paperbacks, whether audiobooks will be created, whether a reprint will even happen… They make a lot of decisions and when they sign up authors, it is in the hopes that the story is truly as good as they think based on what they know. They have done the market research and know which books and stories have sold, and which ones still continue to sell.
It is good that in recent years there are more and more publishers to pitch to and authors have the opportunity to find people who believe in their literary vision.
- Nominated review from our team's book club this month.