O Beautiful follows Elinor, an early-40s Asian American woman who has her first major assignment after a career shift from modeling to journalism. She is back in North Dakota, where she grew up, to cover the oil boom in the Bakken. She was recommended for the role by Richard, a former professor & Elinor’s most recent ex. While in North Dakota, Elinor is grappling with the changes to the area since she left, trying to suss out the storyline for her article, and reflecting on her life up until now. 

I was really drawn to the idea of this book, but I ultimately found it a little clumsy and underdeveloped. The plot flits about, never quite landing on a through-line, leaving each narrative trail only cursorily explored. The writing itself, while having snippets of inspired process, lacked finesse. There was a significant amount of telling rather than showing.

Additionally, Elinor is fairly irritating character; she is prickly and snobby and even at times combative. This is not an issue in its own right, but it was hard to tell if she was intended to be quite as abrasive and inconsistent as she ultimately came across. One moment Elinor would be (understandably) railing against a sexist or racist experience, the next she would not understand a very clear insinuation about her safety in a very male-heavy town. It was confusing as a reader, and left me feeling like the author couldn’t quite decide if Elinor was 20 years old or 40 years old.