(2023) Yellowface
2023-01-01
This books is entertaining, and funny at times, but is otherwise not of particular interest. It feels like a prolonged shower fantasy you might have after a particularly vicious Twitter fight. The book itself seems to exist to provide catharsis to the author over the social media mobs that have assailed her. This itself is fine, but severely weakened by the form of delivery in the form of an analogous book.
The delivery is weakened by the use of the first-person. Creating a first-person narrative story feels timid compared to telling the real-life grievances directly, or even translating them into a story, rather than delivering them through hints in a parallel world. Another approach would have been to lift the personal experience into a general outlook on the world, but the book is far from being able to do that, and I don't even think it's attempting to, which is good.
The book drops many important plot points, and wastes interesting dilemmas with disappointing resolutions. There are a few times where tension is created and then immediately released with confusingly small consequences. The ending was ridiculous, and reminded me, more than anything else, of a Scooby-Doo episode.