Amber Share

This is a genius hybrid blend of art, travel guide, and humor in a great package. I really hope all the one-star reviewers get their jaded asses handed to them at some point (as I’m assuming most are bored twelve year olds), or else the world is coming to an end even sooner than we thought.

I used to follow Amber Share’s posts and I probably should make more of a point of it to do that again. I had read and enjoyed her book Subpar Parks: America’s Most Extraordinary National Parks and their Least Impressed Visitors and even though a few of these entries sometimes go a long way I was in the mood to read this second book just as it became free at the library and I thoroughly enjoyed reading every page cover to cover. I liked this book even more than I liked the previous one show more and I also gave that one 5 stars.

When I look at the art captions in artwork one by one I find many of them hilarious. I love to check in on her Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/subparparks/. She had a website too: https://ambersharedesign.com/.

This is an old article that was written by the Sierra Club because of the first book about the National Parks: https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/slideshow/meet-amber-share-roaster-nature-s-fi....

I got a lot of laugh out loud moments and even more smiles as I read this book. It’s also a great armchair travel book.

I have a bunch of favorites. I’d like to quote most of the book but will share just a very few.

One of the ones I laughed at was from the pages for Tikal National Park, Guatemala, a major site of Mayan civilization. The review: “The ruins are not in good shape” and the author’s comment: “Here’s a fun fact some people apparently don’t know: Ruins, by definition, are usually not in amazing shape.”

Another representative example is for Cape Breton Highlands National Park. The review: “All the cool places are at the top of the mountain.“ Her comment “Hold up – you’re telling me I have to drive a scenic road all the way to the top of the mountain to see the breathtaking views from the top of the mountain? Hard pass.”

I like the entry for Loch Ness: The intro is “A lake best known for logs people think are a glimpse of a giant creature” and the review is “Just a lake” and the author’s response is “A little tip that might’ve helped you out a whole lot: Loch is a Scottish Gaelic, Scots, and Irish word meaning… lake.”

This one on the Matterhorn: “the mountain was much smaller than depicted.“ “I’m curious about what kind of depiction this person could’ve seen that a 14,672-foot mountain simply could not live up to in person.” And later: “there is also a 1:100th-scale replica at the Matterhorn in Disneyland, sitting at 147 feet tall, which made its debut there in 1959. Perhaps the reviewer accidentally visited that one?“

One more: Sahara: “The disappointment knew no bounds.“ “Picture this: a sea of sand stretching as far as the eye can see, and the only thing more boundless than the desert in front of you is the absolute disappointment you feel.“

This is both an entertaining and an informative book. I learned a lot about the world’s national parks and other natural sites and also about human made monuments and other objects/structures/things. There is a lot more detail in the text than just the blurbs. There is a lot of information about each place. She has an amusing way with words and is able to also educate.

I love the art. The picture for each place is wonderful and I love the various pictorial maps and the various other pictures. (I am such a huge fan of the art I feel as though a couple of sentences here isn’t enough as I could write a review just about the art, but I’m not going to do that. I’ll just add that the art makes the book.) Both the art and the text are wonderful but without the art the book wouldn’t be anywhere as good as it is.

This book makes me wish I I had traveled much more when I was younger and fitter and when it was often much less expensive to go to many of these places.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Some Background and Perspective
The Americas
Europe
Africa
Asia
Oceania
How to Have an Absolutely Terrible Time Traveling

That last section is reason enough to read the book. It has great advice for anyone traveling anywhere away from their home area.

This author-illustrator’s two books are ones I’d like to own to occasionally dip into and to share with others. This was a perfect book to read for my last book of 2024. They’re brilliant books and would make great gift books for the right readers. show less

You can’t please all of the people all of the time, but a 1-star review of Yosemite National Park (“Trees block the view, and there are too many gray rocks.”) or the Grand Canyon (“A hole. A very, very, large hole.”)?

Amber Share is an illustrator / graphic designer, and also a life-long afficionado of the United States’ National Parks. She’s an avid hiker and finds much to enjoy in wildly different climates and ecosystems, including some of the most remote park settings. So, show more when she stumbled upon some of the clueless 1-star reviews she just had to shake her head, and then laugh.

She turned to her talent for illustration and painted some wonderful depictions, graced with the clueless remarks of seriously underwhelmed visitors, and began posting them, once a week at first (on her blog? Instagram? … whatever). People loved them and clamored for more. This book is the result.

Each park “visited” starts with the illustration and the clueless remark, but Share then gives an informative description of the park, including some ranger’s tips / cautions, and other hints on best enjoying nature’s splendors. She also incorporates Native American culture and significance for most of these parks.

The text does get somewhat repetitious, especially when you’re reading this as a book, rather than using it as a handy reference guide, hence the 3-star review. But she gets 5***** for her illustrations! I’m inspired to visit another “Not much to do” park! show less

Humorous and informative and pleasing to the eye.

I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy these in book form, viewing & reading one right after the other, but I still loved them, as much as seeing the ones I’ve seen one or a few at a time online. There is a lot more to the book than the illustrations with reviews. I thought the book would be just the images with their short reviews/captions but there is so much more to it. There is a LOT more text than the short one star reviews. The author writes a show more lot about each park. It’s really interesting and makes for a fully developed book, though the book turned out not to be the very quick read I’d been expecting. I’d been looking forward to a really quick read but what I got made the longer read worthwhile. It’s not the coffee table book I was expecting though it’s beautiful and would work well as one of those too. When not on their own I didn’t have as many laugh out loud moments but the reviews and some of the other text are still amusing.

There is a lovely dedication page.

There is a great biographical introduction.

The parks’ art & reviews are organized by area.

The Contents:

Introduction/Behind the Scenes
A Brief History of the National Parks and How This Book is Organized

Alaska
Pacific West
Intermountain, Midwest
Northeast and National Capital
Southeast

General Tips for Park Visits
Acknowledgements
Resources

At the beginning of each of the geographical sections there is a pictorial map that shows where each park is located in the area and each has a miniature picture that represents something about the specific parks.

I learned a lot.

I’ve always been jealous of one friend who traveled to every single national park with her boyfriend then husband. I would have loved to do that. I’ve visited so few of them. This book whetted my appetite to try to get to a few more.

I love the art style of the illustrations. They perfectly fit their subject in an unique and I think creative way. The book’s creator is an illustrator but it turns out that she is also a (mostly) good and engaging writer. I appreciated the writing and especially the information about each location that’s included with the illustrations.

This is a book I’d love to own. I read a library copy. I requested that my public library buy it and they did.

Highly recommended! show less