Fetishized
by Kaila Yu
What It’s About
Kaila Yu’s Fetishized is a memoir about growing up in a world that keeps telling Asian women what they’re supposed to be. She writes about her years as a singer, model, and influencer, about the violence she experienced, and about trying to separate who she is from the image people wanted from her. It’s part confession, part social commentary, told mostly in order but looping into the bigger things happening around her, including shootings, headlines, and the way the internet feeds on attention.
What Stuck With Me
More than anything, this book reads like a study in, not only fetishization but also insecurity, how it forms, how it feeds on itself, and how the world rewards it in ways that keep you trapped. Yu’s openness about her past, her mistakes, and the image she built feels raw and unguarded. I didn’t always understand her choices, but I understood the need behind them. Attention can look like power when what you really need is validation.
She writes about fetishization, the long history of Asian women being objectified, exoticized, and treated as interchangeable. It’s not just a personal wound; it’s a form of discrimination that has followed generations, reinforced through media, stereotypes, and silence. Yu’s experiences fit within that reality, and she’s right to name it for what it is: dehumanizing and unacceptable. Yet beneath the anger is a quieter ache, the need to be seen as enough.
Reading her story, I kept thinking about how that hunger for approval can twist into performance, and how easily performance becomes identity. The anger she carries makes sense in that light; it’s not just at the people who objectified her, but at herself for believing she had to fit the mold they handed her.
Someone very dear to me has felt the weight of fetishization and the confusion it brings, being looked at too closely and still not really seen. That’s what this book circles: the loneliness of being visible for the wrong reasons. It doesn’t excuse what happened to her, but it turns the story into something more layered and maybe that’s where its truth really lies. Yu is strongest when she shows how being seen can turn into a form of control. Maybe now, after facing that history so directly, she can use her voice to stand beside and protect the Asian women still trying to find theirs.
Would I Recommend It
Yes, but with context. Fetishized is a mirror held up to insecurity, identity, and survival and not a simple story of empowerment. It asks uncomfortable questions about agency, visibility, and what we trade to be noticed. Some parts are hard to read, and they should be. If you’re ready for that kind of honesty, it’s worth it, especially in conversation with others. It’s valuable for what it reveals, not for what it resolves.
My takeaway: Be kinder to the girl who needed to be seen. And to yourself, if you’ve ever been her.
Fetishized was our My Asian Era Book Club selection this month, and it sparked one of the most open conversations we’ve had yet. We were given a rare opportunity to connect with the author through a written Q&A. Her responses will be shared soon. Thank you to Kaila Yu and Crown Publishing for making the book available to me and for providing an extra copy for our giveaway.
Where to find
Available on Bookshop.org Amazon. Libro.fm.
First time on Bookshop.org? Click for discount code.
Set the Mood
Ink Brush Journal - for notes that turn into reflections.
Ceramic Tea Cup - slow mornings, soft steam, clear thoughts.
Incense Blend - smoke and calm for heavy pages.
Bookmark Set - for stories that ask you to pause.
