I wish I'd liked this more than I did because there's some merit to its writing style. For some reason, though, [a:C Pam Zhang|15934143|C Pam Zhang|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1617315708p2/15934143.jpg] seems bent on writing gross-out fiction reminiscent of the splatterpunk writing of the early 1990s. The story, which is about two sisters during the late gold rush in mid-nineteenth-century California, is interesting enough but Zhang too often goes for transcendent depth more than it warrants, and her use of cinematic devices confuses and annoys.
There's also a generous sprinkling of Chinese in it, phrases and words I understood because I lived in China for a year but I doubt other general readers would. Their use doesn't prohibit the understanding of the text, but it could frustrate readers as they're not being used for effect.

For the first seven years of Lucy's life, Ba was a prospector. Seven years of life lived as if windblown, drifting from site to site on the rumor of gold.
Ma set her foot down two years back. One night she left Lucy and Sam in the wagon, and for hours she and Ba talked in the open hills. Snatches drifted back, Ma's voice holding forth on hunger and foolishness, pride and luck. Ba was silent. Come morning, the prospecting tools were packed away. Ba nursed sullenness for a month, gambled and drank. It was Ma who first mentioned coal mines.
Since then, Ba's put away most of the gambling, and most of the drinking too. He blusters of fortunes made in coal, as he once blustered of fortunes made from other materials. The forbidden word went unsaid—till now.
Tonight, as ash from a burning mine falls through their window, Ba tells them about the gold.