Yellowface, by Rebecca F Kuang

June Hayward has known Athena Liu since college, but their writing paths since have been very different. Bestselling Athena is a celebrated darling of the literary world while June’s first novel flopped. When Athena suddenly dies, June finds the first draft of her next novel that no-one else has seen. She edits, revises and reworks the story but shared credit is messy and difficult – who would it hurt if June publishes the novel as solely her own? What follows is a horror story of the modern publishing industry and social media, with a side of white privilege. June is both victim and villain, as is Athena, and reader sympathies sway wildly as more information emerges about their experiences and actions. Their love-hate relationship in life and after it underpins an intriguing tale of fear and loathing, deception and success. Told in first person from June’s point of view, Rebecca Kuang does a brilliant job of undermining her narrator by exposing June’s self-deception and wilful misunderstanding of her position. Her blighting depiction of the publishing industry is all too believable, which makes the end of the story triumphantly bleak as June learns to really play the game.