Author Jung Yun brings a different perspective to a racially divided community in "O Beautiful." The narration adds depth to this story about a woman's return to North Dakota and a hometown she no longer recognizes. Oldtimers don't want change, yet change is coming as thousands arrive to work the oilfields.

Elinor comes to town to write a magazine article on assignment. She already felt isolated due to her past with an overbearing father and a standoffish Korean mother. The changes in her town, however, set her further apart and ostracized now. Now she's pushed out by overpowering men, neighbors who still see her as a foreigner and the memories of her mom's abandonment of family.

Jung weaves memories of the past with current pressures that impact women. The result is a dramatic revealing of where a woman stands in what should be the land of freedom and opportunity.

Elinor grew up in North Dakota, the child of a military man and his Korean wife brought back from an overseas assignment. She was tall and gangly and mocked and bullied by her classmates as a half breed and other racial epitaphs. But her height was her ticket out as she was discovered as a model right out of high school. She took off as soon as she could and never looked back. Now, her modeling days behind her, she is trying to make it as a freelance journalist.

Her mentor and former lover has put a big assignment in her way. He is having surgery and will be out of things for a while so suggests her as a substitute to a large magazine that is doing a feature on the oil boom in North Dakota. It's the first time Elinor has been back and she barely recognizes the place where she grew up.

Now it is flooded by a massive influx of men and money. Women are outnumbered and catcalled everywhere. Elinor feels less safe here than in all her years of city living in New York. The men are bold, violent and often drunk. There is an air of sexual violence in the air and women have been disappearing. But her editor insists that the story is that of the oil money itself and the way it has changed the local population.

As Elinor works on her article, she starts to question everything she knows. Her sister has stayed in the area and their relationship is strained. She is also trying to reinvent herself as she enters middle age. Elinor questions why her mentor gave her this amazing opportunity. Was it because he valued her work or some more sinister reason? Does she even want to be a journalist or should she try something else?

This is Jung Yun's second novel and it is a New York Times Editor's Choice Book. She explores how our relationships and even our memories change over time and the difficulty of looking backward and reconnecting with anything or anyone from our past. She also writes about how people of color are treated in the United States where they are automatically considered by the majority as lessor than. This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.

One of the most interesting and timely novels I've read in a long time! It encompasses everything from gender, race, class, and more in gorgeous prose and a fascinating story about one woman's life, her land, and her community. I alternated between the print and audio versions, and both were fantastic. I highly recommend either format!

A beautiful story about relationships, community, and race. While beautiful might not describe the pains shown throughout, but it definitely is the word to describe the writing. This was especially relatable as someone who lives in a small suburb town where I had very few people of color in my surroundings at school.

Elinor Hanson has always been a bit of an outsider, never feeling like she fit in. Being half-asian, half-white and living in North Dakota the daughter to a former air force man who brought home his wife from overseas to be a quiet, subservient partner and mother to his future kids. Their family never quite fit the mold and especially after her mom left them Elinor knew she wanted out.
Elinor fled North Dakota for a life of modeling before heading back to school to become a writer. When her former professor, mentor and role model (who also happened to be her boyfriend) offers her a chance at a story that will take her back to North Dakota she takes the opportunity to make a name for herself.
Starting on her plane ride from NY to ND she once again feels like a vulnerable outsider. When Elinor arrives to Avery, ND to research a story on the impact of the oil boom she is surprised by what she finds. Over-booked hotels, men around every corner and few women to speak of. In short a lot of testosterone in an over-flowing town. As she researches her mentor's story she finds there are other, deeper aspects to the story that she would prefer to dig into.
Throughout the book Elinor interacts with a wide range of individuals which provides a social commentary of life on the Bakken. While I got lost in this commentary Elinor was learning and transforming. As the end of the book neared I found myself wanting more and running out of pages but by the end I felt like her story and self-discovery had come full circle.

Loved this as much as I loved Shelter (the author’s previous work). Yun has such a skin in creating likeable-unlikeable characters. I was so invested in this story from the first page. Such a relentless, beautifully told story of redemption and reinvention. Loved loved loved.

Can you leave your hometown and leave behind all the problems that it holds? That is what Elinor Hanson finds out as she takes a job that brings her back to the North Dakota town where she grew up.

There is intrigue. There are fascinating characters. There is racism. And there is greed... all simmering under the surface.

Yun's prosaic writing is what drew me in and her story kept me. O Beautiful is not what I expected... it is so much more. And the best part? It did not have a tidy ending... and the wondering about that is perhaps the best lingering thing about this book! I highly recommend it!

I would like to thank Macmillan Audio and Netgalley for this ARC.

I listened to the audio version of this book.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ALC.

This book is smart and intense. Jung Yun attempts to tackle issues of the current socio cultural climate in a fictional story about a woman born to a white father and a Korean mother. Eleanor is sent back to her home state to report on the impact of an oil boom on a small town. As the town has been forced to grow rapidly to accommodate the influx of workers, it has been pushed to reckon with a population that may not be ready for change or to respond to a half white, half-Korean reporter. The author addresses sexism and sexual assault, the impact of oil drilling on the land and people, the working class, homelessness, familial distress, and racism. At times the issues feel more vast than the book can handle and the story suffers when they cannot be fully explored. The unlikeable narrator is well-written and the way issues came up organically within the story makes the reader sit and think. Overall I wanted more from the book. I wanted more resolution, more closure, more of a light on the path for the way forward.

(Wrote a separate review for the ebook)

I rushed through this one in a day, listening as well as reading voraciously. The narrator was flawless so I did something I very rarely do--I listened even when I could have read. Usually listening is a second choice for me, and happens only when reading a novel is impossible or impractical. But this audiobook was an exception. I will look for this narrator again. (I've only done that once before with the narrator of 'Underground Airlines' by Ben Winters)

I'm torn on this book. I'd really give it a 3.5 stars. I enjoyed it, and I thought it was a thoughtful look at a type of community I am not familiar with. I liked that Elinor was a flawed, complex woman, and appreciated that her view of the world, power, men, beauty, and insiders vs outsiders was framed by not only her life experience as a person of color, but as the daughter of a beautiful mother who left.
What I disliked was how seemingly little story arc there was for her-- how it still felt like she was squandering her opportunity at the end, and I wanted to know more about the story she would ultimately write.

Elinor returns to her home state of North Dakota as a journalist to write about how the oil boom has changed the state. As a mixed heritage woman of her white father and her Korean mother, she is deemed an outsider and always has been. In a place where there are mostly men because of the job opportunities, women are far and few between. Gender roles, racial prejudice, class and #metoo played a big part in this novel. Yun also dives into the destruction of the environment that occurs because of the oil that is destroying the land.

While I wanted to really love it, I just didn’t. It was a character driven novel with a lot of themes throughout, but I had to force myself to keep reading. I did not connect with Elinor as she seemed to whine about a lot and then not make what I would say are good decisions. Male privilege was a major theme and Elinor seemed to mostly accept that was the case. I did not love the ending of the book, but I will not give away any spoilers.

Usually when a book tries to explore several social issues, it irritates me. But this one worked really well. This would be a great title for book groups.


Review copy provided by publisher.

The premise of this novel excited my interest, but oh my, I am so torn after reading it.

The writing is excellent. But the plot? I'm not sure what the author wanted to do with the book. There were so many themes, none of which is fully developed, in my opinion. The oil boom's impact on rural North Dakota takes center stage at times, but the plot pivots haphazardly to other stories, all underdeveloped: the protagonist's back story with her sister, mother, and father, the all-pervasive misogyny and racism in the region; the issues on the local reservation.

The protagonist of O Beautiful was hard to like. She was self-destructive, did not seem to care for anyone, and didn't seem to grow or develop as the book progressed. There honestly was not a single likable character in the book, making it very hard to connect.

Maybe Yun wanted to structure the novel to feel like a collection of vaguely related journalist interviews? Eleanor was trying to figure out her story's angle and seemed to settle on one at the end. But that is not a very interesting plot. The many subthemes could have made a great story in and of themselves, but none reached any conclusion or closure.

I received an audiobook version of the book from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Elinor Hanson, a former model looking to reinvent herself as a freelance writer, returns to her home state of North Dakota to write about the oil boom that has transformed the area she once knew. Within this setting Yun has created a microcosm of all the world’s current ills - racism, sexism, environmental worries, classism - that never feels forced.

Through the specific story of Elinor’s exploration of the current state as well as her own past traumas, Yun has created a universal tale about coping with the world as it is. A truly remarkable novel made all the more dynamic by the beautiful voice performance of Catherine Ho.

This one is a case of the premise being so much better than the execution. The setting of natural resource acquisition and its impact on the residents of the area is timely, and the reporter-lens is engaging. The problem lies in the overt, cliche, chip-on-the-shoulder moralizing that surrounds each plot point. Whether the issue is age, gender, race, or environmentalism, the storyline is usurped by didacticism. Add in a disappearing woman mystery and parent-issue resolutions, and there is very little room for beauty in O Beautiful.

**Audio - while the narration is clear and paced well, the whispery, dramatic tone accentuates/underscores the major flaws in the text

Thank you to Jung Yun, St. Martin’s Press, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was my first book by this Jung Yun and I believe this was her second novel. Ive given it 5 stars because it was good. It’s exquisitely written with a meandering look at the main character. Elinor was complicated, looking lost and depressingly unhappy. In some ways the story reminded me of Sharp Objects because it was so dark and messy. Revealing the ugliest of humanity. Making me very uncomfortable. I found that I wanted to know more so I could, I don’t know???? Create some closure for her?? Was that even possible with everything she’d been through??
In this I saw the stereotypical roles of men, women, and race. It wasn’t pretty. I paid close attention to the terms: we, us and them. Seeing a lot of things from
a different perspective. It wasn’t pretty.
This book will try to take pieces of you. It will demand that you feel uncomfortable, seeing whats there. Squirming internally.
I loved the writing and highly recommend it. I chose to listen to this book on audio and loved the narrator. It was 10 hours and 58 minutes.
Thanks Macmillan Audio via Netgalley

I could not finish the book. Despite a promising setting and interesting main character, nothing seemed to really happen. I stopped after 2/3rds because I just don't care. I don't like Eleanor - she's prickly and lacks empathy. I stuck with her, though, because I felt something big would be revealed any minute to make her more sympathetic. Finally, I ran out of patience.

I could not stop thinking about O Beautiful from the moment I started it. The narrator did an amazing job, and the characters and plot were absolutely enthralling. The writing is evocative and captivating and is rooted in some absolutely crucial issues in our society. Author Jung Yun explores race and class in North Dakota, she explores Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, she explores the corruption of politicians, the sexism and dangers that women face, the idea of insiders vs. outsiders - the list goes on. And yet, somehow, it really didn’t feel like there was too much packed into the book.

Elinor Hanson is a former model turned journalist who is on assignment in her home state. She is thrust into a new, extreme reality brought on by fracking and the oil boom in North Dakota communities. The writing is beautiful and lyrical, and I have not stopped contemplating the themes and characters since I finished the audiobook a few days ago. I’ve already recommended it to several people! Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for this advance audiobook.

O Beautiful
by Jung Yun
an eye opening read, especially as an audio book. The presentation by Mrs. Ho, is extraordinary. The story centers on a former model, starting her second career is offered the story of a life time. The oil boom in shale oil found through the practices of fracking in her old neighborhood of North Dakota. The Industry has brought many good and bad things to the area. Although money is flowing in as well as out of the area. The towns are overwhelmed with oil crews, and crime is up everywhere. Housing shortages and miss management of funds and resource accentuate a over whelmed system. Added to the mix, Elinor Hanson, had always felt she was an outsider. The one on the opposite side of us versus them in North Dakota. She was born of a mixed family when her father brought her and her mother back from Korea. After the war, she finds a lot of hardships fitting in the rural ideal of the area. Like many kids her age she left right after High school. The book not only looks at the issues of booms, and busts, in the economy. But the cultural, political, and gender conflicts that are acted out everyday in these violent and tumultuous times. Not only looking at sexism, racism, rape of land and people, but of ideals and the rights to have human compassion. It is an overwhelming story of the true effects of poverty, desperation, and achieving the American dream. the book is thought provoking, and very well spoken, bringing the issues up in an attempt to explain some of the advent of these Shale industry, and its social political and environmental affects.

I sure did want to like this book. The writing is strong. The narrator is amazing. The setting is a place where I have no knowledge so I was hoping to learn something. I did, sort of. Mostly I learned that the main character is hard to like and she never learns anything. She is a hypocrite. That is the biggest problem for me. I can deal with a complicated protagonist, but she is so sanctimonious about everything, but then acts exactly that same way. It was just too much. I keep thinking, “Is this over yet.” The writing is amazing. I will admit that. Yun has a gift for language. It is special.