DECEMBER 2021 - AudioFile
Catherine Ho narrates this brutally honest work of literary fiction set during the North Dakota oil boom amid the Great Recession of 2008. The first-person protagonist, Elinor, who returns home while in the midst of trying to reinvent herself, is unreliable. Yet Ho compels listeners to hang on her every word as though it were gospel. While Elinor is unlikable and vain, Ho breathes life into her in a way that makes listeners forgive each shortsighted or closed-minded thought or comment that pops into Elinor's head. While this is not an audiobook for those who want a lighthearted romp about returning home, those who have complicated feelings about their own hometowns will relate to it. A.R.F. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
09/13/2021
In Yun’s revelatory sophomore outing (after Shelter), a former model turned freelance journalist’s big magazine assignment sends her back to her hometown in North Dakota. Elinor Hanson grew up near the Bakken Formation with her Air Force father, who is white, and her Korean mother, and the assignment, which she took over from a former professor, Richard, involves reporting on the oil boom in nearby Avery, N.Dak. On the flight from New York City, Elinor faces sexual harassment and discrimination for being Asian, experiences that recur throughout the novel. As Elinor interviews men who came from all over the country in pursuit of the economic opportunities provided by the oil industry, she learns that some of her former grad-school colleagues are preparing to sue Richard for sexual harassment. Elinor also begins asking around town about a woman who disappeared two years earlier, but her editor, who is romantically involved with Richard, admonishes her not to write a “dead-girl story.” By the end of Yun’s tightly plotted narrative, Elinor has figured out the angle of her story in a way that ties together the drama around Richard and the problems in her hometown. Yun successfully takes on a host of hot button subjects, drilling through them with her protagonist’s laser-eyed focus. (Nov.)
From the Publisher
Enthralling and thought-provoking…Explore[s] larger questions about power and belonging in modern America….A quiet and dangerous story and an insightful meditation on how to make our lives here, amid the beauty and horror of our country.”—Crystal Hana Kim, The Washington Post
“This mesmerizing and timely novel, the author’s second, provides an on-ramp into conversations about racism, environmentalism, journalism, economics and sisterhood.”—Elisabeth Egan, The New York Times
“A gripping page turner…I love this book because Yun doesn’t provide any easy answers to complex questions, the characters and setting are cinematically rendered, and the writing is just sublime.”—Elizabeth Greenwood, San Francisco Chronicle, “15 Best Books of 2021”
“Revelatory…Yun successfully takes on a host of hot button subjects, drilling through them with her protagonist’s laser-eyed focus.”—Publishers Weekly
“A novel that transcends genre; it is as propulsive as a mystery, as evocative of time and place as historical fiction, and as breathtakingly timely as contemporary fiction or journalism... Yun's tender, sparse prose and clear-eyed gaze make her sophomore release something truly special and poignant.... Insightful, shrewd, and surprisingly tender and heartfelt, O BEAUTIFUL is a searingly current and necessary addition to every bookshelf and library, and a courageous portrait of a country on the brink of unwinding.”—Rebecca Munro, Bookreporter.com
"With a shrewd eye and sharp sense of humor, Yun finds in the familiar tale of one woman’s return to her small town roots a story as big as the nation itself." —Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind
"A grand and stunning piece of work, at times humorous, sad, and breathtaking.”—Edward P. Jones, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Known World
Library Journal
11/01/2021
The second novel by Yun (author of the critically acclaimed Shelter) is a poignant work featuring 42-year-old Elinor Hanson, a former print catalogue model from New York who is now a journalist with a newly minted degree. Originally from North Dakota, Elinor grew up with a military career officer father and Korean-born mother who abandoned the family when Elinor was 12. Elinor now finds herself back in her home state, assigned to report on the recent oil boom. As she follows the leads of her reporting, Elinor uncovers deeper concerns, including contaminated water, unethical dealings regarding mineral rights, the abuse of women, and an unsolved murder. With a tenacity akin to Erin Brockovich's, Elinor aims to root out a story that will be fit to print. Yun's writing is filled with strong characterizations, drawing on her own upbringing in North Dakota, and she proves herself a laudable storyteller. Presenting Elinor as a woman on a journey of self-discovery and reinvention, the novel addresses key contemporary concerns, from race and gender to power and authority. VERDICT While the conclusion could have been fleshed out more, this multilayered and suspenseful tale is filled with unexpected and satisfying twists. A definite page-turner offering much to contemplate.—Shirley Quan, Orange Cty. P.L., Santa Ana, CA
DECEMBER 2021 - AudioFile
Catherine Ho narrates this brutally honest work of literary fiction set during the North Dakota oil boom amid the Great Recession of 2008. The first-person protagonist, Elinor, who returns home while in the midst of trying to reinvent herself, is unreliable. Yet Ho compels listeners to hang on her every word as though it were gospel. While Elinor is unlikable and vain, Ho breathes life into her in a way that makes listeners forgive each shortsighted or closed-minded thought or comment that pops into Elinor's head. While this is not an audiobook for those who want a lighthearted romp about returning home, those who have complicated feelings about their own hometowns will relate to it. A.R.F. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2021-08-18
A journalist returns home to North Dakota for a story and begins to come to terms with her childhood.
Elinor Hanson, the child of a Korean immigrant mother and an American military father, didn’t have the easiest time growing up in North Dakota, especially after her mother left. When Elinor was 18, she moved to New York, worked as a model for a long time, and then went to journalism school. A romantic relationship she had with one of her professors leads him to recommend her for a magazine story about a North Dakota town flooded by people looking for work during the oil boom. Beginning with the turbulent and unsettling flight into Avery, Elinor feels vulnerable and off-balance, a feeling which increases as she begins her interviews and realizes the town’s insider-outsider tensions are complicated by race, class, and gender, all of which recall her own difficulties growing up in the area as a biracial girl. As Elinor continues reporting, she meets up with her estranged sister and begins to understand the uneasy place women find themselves in in Avery—revered for their rarity in the population, paid much more at local strip clubs than men make as oil workers, and threatened by violence and objectification. Meanwhile, some of Elinor's former classmates in New York are working on a sexual harassment lawsuit against her former professor, and they want to know if her relationship with him was consensual. The tensions in both locations force Elinor to reckon with all the different parts of her past so she can begin to understand the current moment and her own place in a deeply divided nation as an Asian American woman who has never felt a sense of belonging. Author Yun has written an absorbing and poignant novel with wonderfully complex characters and no easy answers.
Intricate and enthralling.
