June Hayward and Athena Liu grew up in the literary world together, but when Athena’s star soars, June’s plateaus. June is bitter but continues to socialize with Athena and doom scroll like the good frenemy she is. But then one night, while out celebrating Athena’s book getting optioned by Netflix, Athena chokes on some late night drunk food and dies. Yup. Like the rest of the book, the scene is darkly funny. On her way out the door, June’s curiosity gets the best of her and she grabs Athena’s latest work in progress. She just meant to look at it, to have a memento of her “friend.” But things snowball and soon June is putting her sparkle on the draft and passing it off as her own. Suddenly, June’s agent starts calling her back and she’s the new darling. But you can’t be the hot young thing of the literary world forever and soon everyone is questioning June. Should she, a white woman, be telling Asian stories? Um, did she kinda try to pretend to be Asian? Wait…did she even write this?
This was another novel that fully lived up to the hype. At first you think June is an unreliable narrator, but the genius is that she’s relatively reliable; she’s just unlikeable. As her actions grow increasingly shady, she’s honest about them. She attempts to justify them, sure, but we can still see what’s happening. June is entitled AF and projects all her own insecurities on Athena. We’re not supposed to like her, and both her ballsy appropriation and inability to take accountability for anything in her life should make us cringe. Kuang’s ability to elicit such a deep deep cringe (and a few giggles at – not with – June) is what made this a top read of the year for me.
5 out of 5 stars.
Pair with: Wolffer Estate Summer in a Bottle rosé – you know it’s basic, but it still tastes good so you can convince yourself that you’re not basic
Peaches to Apples 