The conclusion of this novel further explores June’s downfall. She begins to hallucinate Athena walking around her and following her, and she sees Athena's Instagram account grow active again, posting pictures of her. Not thinking rationally, she panics, going to see Geoff for some avenue of support.

June is being pressured by her editor and publishing company to write a new book, something that would reassert her image as a writer who can actually write, and kill any lingering sentiments of her being a thief.

Now, we see June feeding into her paranoia, having Tom track down the person behind Athena Liu’s Ghost account.

Tom is successful, and June finds out that it’s Athena’s ex boyfriend and writer Geoff, who’s behind the account. She tracks him down and confronts him, initially feigning ignorance but giving in once she realizes Geoff knows the truth. Geoff belittles her, attempts to blackmail her, but June is recording him in return, and threatens to release it unless he stops.

In this section of the story, we see the issues with June’s literary success. While it seems like her success is increasing at an incredible rate, with June’s book being considered for a movie deal, talk starts about how she plagiarized her book off of Athena. Attacks from a twitter account named begin to flood June’s social media feed, and while she hurriedly reassures her editor and publisher that the accusations are false, she grows sickened and panicked.

In this second part of the book, June gets invited to various places to talk about the book she published, and begins to question whether or not Athena had more of a right to write and profit from Chinese suffering than she did, since Athena herself doesn’t speak Chinese and never lived in China, presumably as a way to deal with the guilt that she was accumulating. June still doesn’t see what she’s doing as plagiarism of cultural appropriation, and goes through various mental gymnastics to justify it.

The novel Yellowface opens with June Hayward, a struggling white writer, who has to grapple with the success of fellow Yale graduate Athena Liu, an Asian-American writer who quickly amassed flaim and critical acclaim following her author debut.

In this last portion of the book, the cohort’s story concludes. Robin and Victoire get their hands on guns from a Hermes safe room, send out a distress signal for any remaining Hermes members, and storm Babel. As expected, they take power relatively easily, and make a speech about the true nature of Babel’s role in British colonialism, asking that whoever disagrees, leave.

Robin and the rest of his cohort land in Britain, managing to cover up Lovell’s death, and head to Mrs. Piper’s residence to hide out for the time being. There, Letty finds out that the three are part of the Hermes Society and sobs for a while, but agrees to help them out.

In this portion of the book, the four get through their exams and attend a dance, after which they head to a sort of afterparty where everyone except Ramy gets drunk. Letty cries on Robin’s shoulder about how Ramy isn’t loving her back.

This portion of the book represents a turning point in Robin’s outlook on Babel, and to what extent he can influence what goes on outside. After almost being caught and wounded doing something for the Hermes Society, he questions Griffin on whether what he’s doing is worth it, and whether it has meaning.

In this second part of the book, we see more details of Robin and his cohorts’ time at Oxford, and their studies. We discover that while the classes are challenging, and there’s a myriad of professors, work is interesting and fulfilling, and all of the four are dedicated. We also see that not all of the professors are white males, such as Professor Craft, a female from whom Letty attempts to seek guidance from, and Professor Chakravarti, who tutors Robin in Chinese.

In this first part of the book, we’re exposed to a young boy laying half-dead in a house in Canton in the 1830s, with his mother already dead from Cholera. A mysterious man appears, later introducing himself as Professor Lovell, and heals the boy with a bar of silver, seemingly using magic. He reveals that he’s from London, and has come to take the boy back with him to study, and states that he ought to choose a white name. The boy picks the name “Robin Swift”, and finds himself on a passage to London.