June Hayward’s literary career is not exactly successful, certainly compared to her old college friend Athena Liu who invites June to celebrate the Netflix adaptation of one of her bestsellers. But when Athena accidentally dies, June is left with the only draft of Athena’s new book, about Chinese labourers in the First World War. 

You follow along with her series of questionable to outright bad choices as she argues to herself that Athena would want her to finish the book. That it does credit to Athena’s memory to edit in a more sympathetic viewpoint for the white characters in the tale. Then it’s just a case of a fresh start under a new pen name using her middle name Song which just happens to sound Asian.

The book, through June’s POV and monologue, follows plagiarism, cultural appropriation, tokenism and racism in the publishing industry, Twitter lynch mobs, and an every growing pile of lies at threaten to topple her at any moment. It took me a long while to get to this but I’m glad I did.