Yellowface presents a grim view of the publishing world and the act of writing professionally. It is often described as lonely and toxic, and June Hayward frequently struggles to find any real joy in her own writing process. She is writing to produce narratives that she believes will be popular with publishers and readers, pushing her focus away from her own personal narratives to what she believes others will enjoy. Athena Liu, however, seems to write with a purpose, to share her history and the forgotten history of others, giving readers personal and heartfelt narratives that resonate. She does so by drafting notes and brainstorming in Moleskine notebooks, which she keeps private from everyone. Similarly, June rediscovers the notebooks she wrote in when she was younger and witnesses the joy writing used to bring her. In both cases, notebooks are a motif that represents the personal nature of writing and the joy that comes with it when an author writes for themselves.

When June convinces Athena’s mother to not give her notebooks to Yale, she discusses the personal nature of Athena’s notes. Athena’s mother acknowledges that Athena never spoke about her work with her, and June suggests that “those notebooks are her original thoughts, raw and unfiltered […] I feel like donating them to an archive would be a violation.