Novalia

"If all I had ever done was to be born and discovered, I would have left a mark across all the land for all time. I grew up fatherless and motherless in a court where all recognized me as a catalyst. And a catalyst I become."

This line made no sense to me while starting the series and now make every sense to me, in all ways possible. The heart goes out to Fitz, young Fitz, fatherless, motherless Fitz, loyal to the king Fitz even it means giving up everything.

It's not hate that I feel for Molly, it's like how every one feels their own pain is the hardest to bear and ignore what the other person sacrifices.

There are very few books that make you obsessed, that spark an overwhelming, all-consuming hunger to know what happens next and I think R.F. Kuang does that perfectly, even notoriously. Yellowface was one of those books that forces you to pick it up in every living and breathing moment just to find out how June is crashing out.

I can hardly say I hated June for her actions, because throughout the book it felt like I was reading someone’s diary during a manic phase. What she did to Athena was fundamentally wrong, of course, but Athena wasn’t so different from her either. She intentionally collected people’s pain, their deepest, darkest secrets because tragedy sells well, because people like to feel better about themselves by knowing they’re faring better than others.

In the first half of the book, I kept thinking about how June was going to get her karma, but by the end, I wished it could go on and on so I could keep reading what she writes as a memoir. It was never just about plagiarism; it was about how consuming someone else’s success is ultimately detrimental to you, and how it always turns into us vs. them.