O Beautiful by Jung Yun is a novel set in a small town in North Dakota where fracking has taken over the town. Elinor, a forty something Asian model, now a freelance writer, grew up in the area and is on assignment to write a piece about how the town has changed for a large magazine. What starts out as one story quickly turns into a much more complicated story as Elinor digs deeper into the racial politics of what has been going on.

I felt conflicted reading this book. I was interested in the story and Yun is a fine writer, although her overuse of the word roughneck was driving me crazy; however, I found it so hard to care about the characters, from Elinor to her sister and others that I wanted to be done with it. It’s a sad and complicated topic and Yun leaves more questions than she answers. Although I didn’t actually enjoy the book, its one I wont soon forget.