Point of View

The novel is written from the first person point of view of the main character June Hayward. By writing the novel from June’s point of view, the author is enacting and complicating her explorations regarding exploitation, ownership, power, and story. Kuang herself is a Chinese American individual. She does not, however, write Yellowface from the perspective of her “beautiful, Yale-educated, international, ambiguously queer woman of color” character Athena Liu (6). Instead, she inhabits the consciousness of her “brown-eyed, brown-haired” cis female white character June (6). She does so in order to explore the ways in which systemic racism exploits people of color, and robs them of their autonomy over their stories and fates. Kuang is thus reclaiming her own story and voice by assuming authority over June's.

Throughout the novel, June makes frequent narrative asides which break the fourth wall. She does so as a way...