Read it in the Green Room
Yellowface
- paceCompulsive, feed-like momentum
- writingSharp, savage satire
- settingInside the publishing machine
- atmosphereSatirical, unsettling tension
For readers who want a fast, savage satire of the book business: June Hayward, a struggling white novelist, watches her celebrated rival Athena Liu die and passes off Athena's unfinished manuscript as her own. Read it for bite and speed, not subtlety.
Beta invites go out in waitlist order. One devlog email a month, at most — or just read the devlog.
Yellowface
R. F. Kuang
The Green Room
Backstage of Yellowface.
Walk in mid-chapter. The people of the book are there, as themselves, knowing what they know so far — and nothing else. Ask them anything. They have read exactly as far as you have.
A moment in the Green Room
Yellowface · R. F. Kuang
June Hayward
As she is at your reading place
You
Do you think of yourself as Athena’s friend?
June Hayward
“Friend. We went to Yale together, we have the same people’s phone numbers, I have sat across from her at a hundred readings where she was the one being read. If that is friendship, then yes. Ask me again in a few chapters — if there are chapters where I change my mind, you have not got to them, and neither have I.”
Their knowledge stops where your reading does.
Who is in the room
Anyone who has walked on by your page.
The cast
Any character who has appeared so far. Someone who hasn’t walked on yet isn’t in the room. That’s not a limitation; that’s the point.
The narrator
The voice telling you the story, as far as it has told it.
The author
As the book presents them — the mind behind the pages you have read, not a biography.
The book itself
Ask what it is doing to you so far. It answers from its own pages, up to yours.
Before you go in
What critics and prize juries said.
Editorial synthesis
Kirkus Reviews called it a fast, biting critique of the publishing industry, finding June's casual racism and flimsy self-justifications oddly cathartic and the story, which unfolds with the rhythm of a social-media feed, hard to put down; it also felt some turns strain belief and that a message obvious from the start leaves little room for nuance. Publishers Weekly praised it as an excellent satire with a sharp analysis of publishing's blind spots and recommended it without reservation.
Drawn from Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly.
How it stays unspoiled
Nothing past your page exists.
The companion is assembled from the passages you have read and only those. A character who knows the ending is no one worth talking to, so there is no override — not behind a setting, not behind a confirmation. Your position is the wall.
Get the book
One ebook. Yours.
US$15.99ebook · eBooks.com
Buy the ebook once, read it in Green Room — or in any reader you already use.
Get the ebook at eBooks.comReading, narration and Green Room compatibility not yet verified for the retailer edition.
The cast has been waiting for you.
Join the waitlist — beta invites go out in order, and the devlog keeps you honest company until then.
