I have stopped and started this book many times over the months I've tried to finish it and I think I finally have to just admit it isn't for me. I just don't like the main character. This feels like a character study of someone I don't especially enjoy reading.

I did find the storyline interesting - the drilling and fracking - but it was definitely overshadowed by an unlikable character.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

O Beautiful by Jung Yun is a challenging and emotionally charged novel that is a perfect fit for readers who appreciate complex, character-driven stories that explore the intersection of identity, community, and social justice, particularly those interested in themes of sexism, racism, and the struggles of contemporary America.

O Beautiful by Jung Yun is a thought-provoking exploration of the complexities of identity, family, and the American Dream. Set against the backdrop of a small town in Ohio, Yun's novel delves into the lives of the Park family as they grapple with issues of race, class, and belonging.

One of the novel's strengths lies in its nuanced portrayal of the immigrant experience and the tensions that arise between generations. Yun's characters are richly drawn and their struggles feel authentic, inviting readers to empathize with their joys and sorrows.

The prose in the novel is elegant and evocative, transporting readers to the heart of the Park family's world with vivid detail. Yun's exploration of themes such as identity and cultural assimilation is both timely and thought-provoking, offering readers plenty of material for reflection. Well-done!

This book was hard to get through. It was dark and sad and just didn't hold my attention. Jung Yun wrote a beautifully woven story about life after the oil boom, it just wasn't my cup of tea. I'm sure lots of people who like to read lovely, slow, lyrical books would enjoy it though!

Elinor Hansen is the daughter of a white Air Force vet dad and a Korean mom. She spent time in North Dakota as a child. Now she returns leaving a successful modeling career behind in favor of writing an article about the oil boom. Elinor is faced with many challenges as she revisits her childhood home. Yum covers racism and sexism among others. This was well-written and thought provoking. I thank Net Galley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Author Jung Yun sets her story in North Dakota, the same state she grew up in. I appreciate that much of her story has come from life experience living in the Midwest. Yun tells the story of Elinor Hanson, a writer who is given the opportunity to tell the story of the Bakken, North Dakota oil boom, the same town she grew up in. Her depictions of Bakken reminded me in some way of Upton Sinclair's "Main Street", but Yun's "O Beautiful" is a more modern and powerful voice than Sinclair. Yun's Elinor deals with racism, family strife, environmentalism, and her conflicting love and hate for her small hometown.
Highly recommended.

With spare and graceful prose, O Beautiful presents an immersive portrait of a community rife with tensions and competing interests, and one woman’s attempts to reconcile her anger with her love of a beautiful, but troubled land. From the critically acclaimed author of Shelter, an unflinching portrayal of a woman trying to come to terms with the ghosts of her past and the tortured realities of a deeply divided America.

I was excited to read this because I loved Shelter and I know she’s a great writer. I liked this one, and the feminism themes resonated, but it felt at times like it was trying to do too much and it fell flat for me in certain places.

A modern day Grapes of Wrath. Engaging and thoughtful, I enjoyed reading this book. At times, it felt a little book reporty given that it’s about a news writer and her story, but it didn’t take away too much from the flow. Thanks to netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is my kind of book for sure. I loved the intersectionality of all of the themes in it. It was really well-written and the abuse storyline really resonated with me as a survivor of abuse. I felt like I was reading about my own self at certain points which is something rare.

masterclass in storytelling and in developing a prickly, challenging, complex main character who, by turns, is entirely worthy of loathing AND compassion. Which is precisely the entire point of the book and how it all comes together at the end is brilliant.

Elinor has a major assignment from a former teacher/mentor in New York: she's to go to North Dakota, where oil has brought about a boom in the region, and write a story. She was born and raised in ND, so this is at once a homecoming and a home-going story, where in she wrestles with living as a biracial Chinese child in ND, how her mother's fleeing her father impacted her, and the ways in which her sister's decision to stay in their small town and raise a family both connects with and contrasts her experiences leaving to start a career in modeling, then returning to college in her 40s to do journalism.

This is a book about misogyny and racism, but it's also a book about feminism and what it means to be a true ally to someone. What Elinor thinks her story will be, one guided by the insight and notes of her white mentor, turns into something completely different as she unravels a story of a missing white girl. This story made the oil town take on a whole new Feel, though as Elinor learns when she visits one of the Native reservations nearby, it's just another missing white girl story . . . and the stories of those who've gone missing for other reasons, whose lives have been desecrated because of their skin color or heritage, maybe don't have the opportunity to disappear the same way white women can.

Because it's also possible the missing woman WANTED to go missing.

Smart, engaging, and deeply character driven, this book reminded me what a powerhouse of a writer Yun is. She wraps so much into this otherwise tightly-written story, offering nuanced characterizations for even what seem to be the most throwaway secondary players in the story

I wish this book were more enjoyable, but it often careened into questionable territory, overemphasizing the beauty of the narrator, failing to really dive into the racial politics in a way that is thought provoking.

I put off reading this book for a while, and now regret that choice. <i>O Beautiful</i> is a beautiful introduction to a topic I knew nothing about. While I'd heard about fracking in the U.S., I had no idea about the boom culture behind it and how it can impact these small towns that are wholly unprepared to have hundreds if not thousands of people looking to strike it rich descend upon them.

Elinor, a forty-something former model turned fledgling journalist, is our introduction into this world. Raised in North Dakota with a white military father and a Korean stay-at-home mom (who later flees her marriage and children), Elinor returns to the area at the behest of her former professor/lover who asks Elinor to take over his story. Elinor is trying to gain control of her own chaotic life while trying to figure out what the story of Bakken, North Dakota is.

This is not a feel good story. There's not a single stereotypically "good" character in the novel. Elinor is a hard character to like, which is part of what makes the story so engaging. She makes terrible choices, she's cold and even at 42 cannot get her life together. However, it's easy to get swept up in <i>O Beautiful</i> because Yun is such a compelling writer.

I see lots of reviews from people who are annoyed that all of the men are terrible in this book. Yun forces us to acknowledge what's happening in these town--especially the ugly parts--the racism, the roaming groups of untethered men who are living almost like feral animals while trying to strike it rich. To want the author to create heroes so we feel better seems like an unfair burden to place on the story.

Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

This book is an interesting snapshot in the current state of the American dream. It combines elements of current events in a great way: everything from high interest point topic of gas and oil to shades of MeToo in terms of both sexual harassment and misogyny against women, from immigration and continuous racism faced by first generation immigrants and their families, to the invisibility of recognition of Native American experiences in relation to all of these topics and especially the continuous lack of attention to the missing Native women.

I thought the book did a great job intertwining each of the topics above without having one take over the other and it made me want to keep reading the book past it's inevitable last page. Sequel, anyone?

This is a beautiful, sparse novel with an unsettling portrait of the underbelly of a North Dakota town in the shadow of an oil boom. Elinor is in her forties, an ex-model American-Korean woman, beginning a second career as a writer. She is given the story, and the reason to return home, by her ex-lover professor, and she begins to find her own way and new direction with this story. In a town of SO many men and so much toxic masculinity, this becomes a story of so many women. So many complex female characters, frustrating and flawed, brought to life as Elinor grapples with the article, her family history and past and present trauma. With themes of race, sexism, abuse, greed and environmental issues, this book has a lot to say about the so-called American dream. I just wish the ending hadn’t felt so rushed. 4 but could’ve been 5 stars.

Returning to her home state of North Dakota to report on life in a small town overtaken by an oil boom, Elinor Hanson encounters everything that is wrong with the USA. Misogyny, racism, capitalism run amok, environmental destruction, indigenous suffering, sharp division, hate, helplessness - Yun lays it all bare. Lots of pain, little redemption. O Beautiful was well-written but in attempting to do too much, it both falls a little flat and pokes at every raw nerve of everyone who is questioning just where the United States is heading in this age and day.

Jung Yun as written a searing and deeply captivating novel about the intersection of race, gender, violence and freedom set in modern day North Dakota. I found this affecting novel to be luminous and moving and shocking and true. Brava.

Although slow at times, this was an excellent example of a character driven story. Beautifully written and paced. I will be recommending for book clubs!

I was drawn by the cover of this book and its title. I went in almost blindly. I was in for a treat and I enjoyed it from beginning to end!
I loved Elinor, her courage, her perseverance, her empathy, her observation skills and her capacity to reflect. All great skills for the writer she shouldn’t doubt she is.
I hope to read a sequel soon. In the meantime, I will follow this author and read her first fiction ‘’Shelter’’.
Very well done, Jung Yun and thank you!

(Read thanks to NetGalley)

Elinor Hanson is trying to reinvent herself. After years of working as a successful "Asian model," she has finished graduate school and is determined to be a successful writer. When her mentor offers her the chance to take over a story about an oil boom in the area where she grew up, Elinor cautiously accepts the assignment. As she interviews the men who have traveled to make their fortunes on the oil fields and the small town residents whose lives have been upended by the oil boom, she realizes anew that she has always been seen as an outsider.
Elinor grew up in North Dakota as the daughter of a white US airman and the Korean woman he brought home after his time overseas. She knows what it is like to feel like an outsider as one of the few non-white students growing up in her North Dakota town, as an Asian woman in a largely white modeling industry, and as an older student in her journalism classes.

O Beautiful is an unflinching look at the things that women, especially women of color, deal with on a daily basis. From the first pages, Elinor is accosted by men who "just want to talk" or "were just trying to be friendly." Jung Yun succeeds in portraying just how oppressive it is to live a life where you are always on your guard, always worried, always looking for the next possible threat. Elinor is often angry and I would say that this book is written with anger, too; there is anger about the way racism and sexism impact our lives, the way giant corporations are destroying the planet for profit, and the widening gap between people who can't make ends meet and those who have more money than they could ever spend.

As the title indicates, this is a story about who belongs in America. Can woman truly feel at home in a society where they need to be on their guard? Can Black or Asian or Latino people find a place to call their own when the people around them see them as threats? O Beautiful is a tightly constructed novel about one woman searching for a place where she will be truly safe and welcome as an Asian American woman.


O Beautiful
By Jung Yun
St. Martin's Press November 2021
320 pages
Read via Netgalley