#there were also ppl reviewing it saying that the premise is unrealistic

[tumblasha]

book review: yellowface by r.f. kuang

overall rating: ★★★★★/5

literally it was so good; i couldn't put it down once i opened the ebook on the plane. originally i was reading the vegetarian by han kang, but the ebook download didn't finish (it ended suddenly on a random page), so i started this one!!

synopsis: (cw: anti-asian racism) athena liu is a very famous author. her college friend june hayward is not a famous author (her first book flopped big time). athena suddenly dies and june finds athena's latest unfinished manuscript. after various edits (including to her own name, now "juniper song"), she publishes that manuscript as her own. the story follows the rest of june's story with this new book

this book was literally so good. every other sentence was just this white woman saying some microaggression (author makes it v obvious that she's wrong in a funny way). i was on my flight back home and i just read this book for ~3hrs w/o stopping. kinda feel bad for the guy sitting next to me who saw me make this "shocked but about to start laughing" face i always make lmao

i've always liked kuang's writing! i read the poppy war by her, and it was really good too (started the second book that trilogy but school kept me busy) ((might re-read))

one little thing is that i saw this tweet a month ago that said "it sounds like kuang has an agenda and is just using these characters as a vessel" which doesn't make sense since that's all that fiction writing ... is. alas, sometimes june acted so comically racist that i felt that tweet bounce around in my head, but there's nothing we can really do about that

pls read! and support ur local libraries. this review was sponsored by the libby app /j

[reasonablespeculation]

submission re: EB & more anon reviews below

I thought maybe I can give my review of endings, beginnings that nobody asked for because well I'm seeing so many biased reviews on twitter of ppl who already decided they hated it before watching it.

Starting off, I would like to say that I expected it to be much more worse than it actually is based on all the exaggerated reactions to the clips and some of the shitty reviews.

Style - I have personally always liked drake's style. Dialogue playing over their body language enforces the idea that what they say is something and what they want to do is something else specially in the bar scene between Frank and daphne. I loved the colour palette used, although it's a bit too dark at times and I ended up watching my own reflection at the screen lmfao. I don't mind jump cuts but the jump cuts at the very beginning were too much.

Dialogue - I'm not a fan of completely improvised dialogues. I prefer a script to be pinned down and the actors are given the freedom to add or take from it. The dialogue is lacking for a movie! But if we compare it to real life it's very realistic and I assume this is what drake was aiming at yet this made the film lose its cinema charm.

Actors - I feel like everyone did absolutely great with what they were given. The process shailene described seems like hell for an actor, going into the scene and saying whatever and expecting the other to say whatever and you have to respond on the spot. Frank and Jack's characters were one dimensional because I assumed they are seen through daphne's eyes and she is not interested in them beyond what they can give her (one gives her security while the other gives her passion). Daphne's character is annoying yet you can clearly tell that was the purpose. She's messy, she makes dumb decisions, she craves to be wanted yet claims she wants to stay away from men, her self righteousness when she saw Frank doing coke shows utter contradictions with her own messiness. I felt like there are a lot of ppl who can resonate with her...she's not your typical heroin. Regarding frank, I felt like he was initially even more one dimensional than what was seen on the screen, but sebastian gave him more character. The last dialogue in the diner felt very real and it made me sad. His chemistry with daphne is one of the things I found to be very real too, when he stared at her during that game It felt so intimate that I wanted to look away and give them some privacy (a choice bart didn't have)

Sex scenes - fans have really exaggerated the sex scenes in the movie because in all honesty for a romantic drama 4 sex scenes is not much and they are not long either or too raunchy. You can tell frank and daphne are very attracted to each other which made the intimacy in the scenes super real and had the viewer squirm in their seat feeling weird for watching it. I'm used to sex scenes being very theatrical in American cinema and that often makes them lose the intimacy required for the scene to be considered "hot" much like fifty shades with it's cold approach to sex and nudity.

Ending - I liked how none of the men tried to chase her to the ends of the world, its realistic and if this was real life all of us would be saying they can do better. Drake didn't exaggerate the love stories and he kind of deployed these relationships as self exploration rather than love. What I hated is how she magically went through character development as she got pregnant (this is such a Male perspective that it made me annoyed) I get how he's trying to promote self love but it just didn't resonate with me because it was associated with pregnancy (yet another person to love and be loved by) her journey towards self love should have started solo and I found it incredibly unrealistic for her to not want to know who the father is and even more unrealistic that none of them demanded to know. No one can live their lives knowing their kid must be out there, even if they don't want kids. And it was so ooc of Jack to say "oh that's great" when she told him she's pregnant and he thought it's his because he clearly stated so many times he doesn't want kids.

Overall I liked the movie, its chill, its decent, and it's not cringey it just has a narrow view of what its trying to prove. It's not a movie you can't take your eyes off of when watching but it's one you are interested to know what happens at the end. Many seb fans expect too much after itonya that they are now criticising sebastian's filmography as if opportunities like itonya happen every day and are just waiting for him to hop on. It's much more complicated than that. Endingsbeginnings is a decent movie, we're just looking too much into it because seb is in it.

RS: I agree with you, great review.

anon1: I j watched eb and I still have no idea what happened to frank where did he go - ghosted, bb. went and had more wild adventures and totally ignored Daphne trying to get in touch.

anon2: I remember fans saying there's a sex scene that lasts 20 min in the movie and clearly there was not, which is one example of people exaggerating the hell out of everything about this movie including how bad it is. Shailene mentioned that they shot a 20 minutes long TAKE of the floor sex scene and drake ended up choosing the bits he wanted - yeah I’ve seen a few reviews from other people on tumblr and the reviews Drake is posting in his stories and nobody has any goddamn chill. it’s either the most heartbreaking movie they’ve ever seen (??????) and dug deep into their psyche and replaced the need for a therapist for the next ten years OR it literally came into their home and called their mom a wh*re and stole their cat and peed on their favourite pair of jeans. LIKE?

anon3: So, I still can’t figure out why Seb, Sha, and Jamie were like, kissing the ground Drake walks on because of how great a director he is. While I didn’t thing E,B was awful, nothing about the style or direction of this film makes me want to see any other of his work? I didn’t think it was that profound and found that his writing (especially Daphne’s character) wasn’t that great 🤷🏻‍♀️ maybe I’m just uncultured lmao - I feel like Drake had a big hit with Like Crazy and has been riding that reputation into the sunset

anon4: Watched the movie. Frank is a pathetic guy with no morals and a very low self-esteem. Shailene acting is painful to watch. The plot is prosaic and inane, the characters are unconvincing and the dialogues are dull.

anon5: I agree that the film didnt have a lot to say. Also i didnt hate Daphne like i thought i would and definitely related to her struggles & sadness. But really, apart from Seb the movie didnt make me feel anything much like you. Which is okay i guess if you're into that sorta thing. Also, did anybody else get the feeling she only really wanted Frank but was with Jack cos she didnt wanna be alone? - yeah for sure

anon6: I am somewhat confused about the film's premise. Was Daphne always so messy and the assault was just a catalyst for her or is she simply dealing with the trauma of being assaulted? The film does suggest the former with the mommy&Daphne cuts, but i am not entirely sold on that. And i fail to see how being *thatbigtwist* helps with her self-loathing? Whats happening there? - I agree with you that it seems like the former... but maybe with the assault kinda kicking off the latest round of messiness and exacerbating certain negative habits in she was dealing with people? Andddd idk... magical healing pregnancy trope?