Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

A failed writer steals her dead rival’s masterpiece and builds a career on a lie that the internet is dying to dismantle.

June Hayward is a struggling writer whose career is going nowhere—until she witnesses the freak death of her friend, the literary superstar Athena Liu. In a moment of envy and opportunism, June steals Athena’s finished manuscript about the history of Chinese laborers. After a few edits and a rebranding as "Juniper Song," June finally becomes the publishing sensation she always wanted to be. But as the internet begins to dig into her past, June finds herself trapped in a spiral of lies and cultural theft that she’ll do anything to protect. Yellowface is a satirical thriller that exposes the vanity of the publishing world and the toxicity of social media.