As it won the 2023 Goodreads choice awards, and was about the world of writing, this seemed like a good thing to put on reserve. Others evidently had the same idea and it took 3 months for it to become available to me. Was it worth the wait?
Well, it was definitely an interesting read about the world of publishing. It wasn't exactly that I didn't know what a harsh world it is, but this was really quite deep and dark. As the author said in the Acknowledgements, the book is intended as horror story about the world of publishing.
A short synopsis, is that June Hayward's friend Athena Liu has everything June wants. A successful career in writing and all that comes with it. When Athena dies suddenly, with June as witness, June then does something unthinkable: She steals Athena's unpublished and unknown manuscript. Although June does a lot of editing, she puts the work forwards as being entirely her own and becomes a hit, under the name of Juniper Song.
June has essentially condemned herself to dodging the truth for the rest of her life.
The novel explores the good side of publishing and being a writer. June is doing something she loves, that is in her very soul. She has money, she can afford things without a thought.
But she discovers it is a very lonely world, as well as competitive. There always seems to be someone out to get her. Sometimes justifiably. That's the world of publishing, especially in the age of social media.
It's a great plotline and gripping. The really strange thing is June. She's the narrator of the story, but she's also the villain. Although she justifies her actions, saying how she credits Athena as her inspiration and pays for a sponsorship in Athena's name, it doesn't change the fact that she stole someone else's manuscript and passed it off as her own original work, instead of as a collaboration. She tried to justify her actions in doing this. Then spends months, years, trying to save her own skin and largely blaming other people.
Although it's fair to say that some people stoop to terrible lows, wrongly blaming someone else for their own actions.
This book did put me off writing and becoming published. June's biggest issue, of course, was that she stole the work and if she had been honest, she may well have had a long and happy career. But the book also highlights how the industry is a brutal and lonely industry for many others, as well as how race comes into decisions. Athena Liu, although she loves writing and people hearing her voice, also hints that there's unhappiness within. A few characters are described as struggling and then having to make do.
I know that the world of writing is complicated. Authors will be targeted for all sorts of things. Something in their work will be offensive to someone or not as good as it's supposed to be. There's always at least one person on social media who will attack them. Loads of authors have been accused of plagiarism, usually with little reason. Sometimes because there's genuine similarity but in all likelihood, it's just a coincidence. In the case of the novel, June was downright guilty. She made her own bed. But the whole industry really is presented as absolutely brutal.
The title is mentioned in the book. I believe it's a reference to something from the Hollywood industry, where white actors played Asian characters using make-up, which was known as yellow-face. June has published a novel about Chinese history, even though she isn't Asian and is, in a way, pretending to be Athena Liu, who was Chinese-American.
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