Sustainability: A Love Story

by Nicole Walker

In  A Love Story , Nicole Walker questions what it means to live sustainably while still being able to have Internet and eat bacon. After all, who wants to listen to a short, blond woman who is mostly a hypocrite anyway—who eats cows, drives a gasoline-powered car, who owns no solar panels—tsk-tsking them? Armed with research and a bright irony that playfully addresses the devastation of the world around us, Walker delves deep into scarcity and abundance, reflecting on matters that range from her uneasy relationship with bats to the fragility of human life, from adolescent lies to what recycling can reveal about our not so moderate drinking habits. With laugh-out-loud sad-funny moments, and a stark humor, Walker appeals to our innate sense of personal commitment to sustaining our world, and our commitment to sustaining our marriages, our families, our lives, ourselves.
 
This book is for the burnt-out environmentalist, the lazy environmentalist, the would-be environmentalist. It’s for those who believe the planet is dying. For those who believe they are dying. And for those who question what it means to live and love sustainably, and maybe even with hope.
 

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Environment, Climate Change

288 pages, Paperback

Published August 17, 2018

Reviews

[Ashley Young]

In the book Sustainability: A Love Story written by Nicole Walker; Walker often focuses on universal problems that tie into her daily struggle of life. Many of her essays focus on the idea of sustainability and how the earth will continue to get worse if people do not start now on stopping things that are toxic for the environment. Many of the public issues she focuses on, also relate to her mental and private struggles every day. She lets the choices of others affect her mood and it causes personal problems throughout her daily life.

[Chelsea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walker's narrator wants to save the world, but she has to live her life every day, too--and that sometimes involves driving a car, eating meat, and wasting time online. When faced with the difficulty of reconciling the two, one could just give up--or, as Walker does, one could use it as an opportunity to talk about how sometimes the planet is saved one plant, one backyard, and one relationship at a time. She is insightful, funny, and often anxious on the page--and that combines into one helluva relatable voice. While it is true that our (so far) inability to save the planet makes it easy to be sad about the state of the world, it is also true that each one of us has at our core a burning desire to "live and love sustainably" and these essays are a lovely meditation on both.

[Austin Hassel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt like this book was a great way to express the problems that are facing our society due to global warming. In Walker’s collection of essays, she uses examples of climate change and compares them to her personal issues. The ones that she references the most is the problems that she has with Erik. In the essay “Are We Going to Make It?” Walker is discussing her argument with Erik about the Tupperware and towards the end she writes, “In a ruined forest, burned, destroyed, the trees might come back. They don’t come back with sweetness”(pg 44). When she talks about this burned forest she is making a reference to this fight that she had with her husband about the Tupperwares. She says, “They don’t come back with sweetness”(pg 44) alluding to the fact that after this confrontation her relationship with Erik is not the same at first, but eventually just like the trees through a little hard work they can get back to the happy stasis of their relationship. She uses this environmental problem to compare to her marriage for a specific reason which isn’t to discuss how her relationship is doing. She is bringing this up as a way of talking about both situations at once which I think is very clever. She calls this collection of essays a love story and I believe this to be true because she uses these tragic events that are tied to global warming to help her illustrate the story of her life.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read most of Walker's previous books, and this one is markedly different for the level of anger that she brings to these essays. Previous books have been playful in their probing, but this one takes it to the next level, where there's some real concern and worry here, which seems appropriate to the subject matter-- reflecting on what we're doing to the earth, what she is leaving her children. And the anger is not directed at the reader--mostly it's directed at Walker herself, usually after her anger in-story is directed at her husband, and then she backtracks in the essay to turn it on herself.

It's an intense read; I wasn't completely sure the marriage would survive the telling.

[Amelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Upon first glance of this book, you might note a sense of hopelessness. According to Walker, the world is burning, the carbon parts-per-million is too high, and we will never make it. While that might prove to be true, she is still able to hold on to an optimistic worldview in these dark times. Walker blends her own personal experiences with larger environmental issues through a series of poetic, nature-based metaphors. As you read, make note of repeated metaphors such as lilacs and wildfires. They take on different meanings and representations each time they are mentioned. Walker also writes about her children with a sense of cautious optimism. She acknowledges the current deteriorating state of the climate, while remaining hopeful that her children's generation could create a better future for themselves. Overall, I enjoyed this book. There are moments of cynical humor alongside moments of deep emotion. It made me think about my carbon footprint and my personal relationships at the same time, and I can say with certainty that no book has ever done that before.

[☼Shannon☼]

I don't know what I was expecting but this wasn't it. It turned out to be a series of essays written in purple prose.

[Erica · Rating 3 out of 5]

A more accurate rating might be 4-4.5 for the writing, 3-3.5 for the concept/content. Maybe it's a lesson in why you shouldn't read contemporary books about your home town written by people who have probably lived there as long as you haven't (a while), or in how immediately books that address climate change age. While the blind spots, and hypocrisies (that's a dead word; apologies) are part of the premise, it feels disingenuous and maybe even a little irresponsible to delve into this territory with such superficial examination of the narrator's relationship to climate change (& environmental degradation/crisis generally): middle class, white, north American, etc. In the conversations I've been having in my head about this, I might say that that is the point, that the pointlessness is the point and the ineffectiveness of individual action is a metaphor for (marriage/parenting/human existence/etc) and then I would say that if it is, it's a damaging metaphor, the way when we say that rape is a metaphor for environmental degradation we diminish that more than that, rape is rape. I am an enthusiastic believer in the fast-paced stream of consciousness all-things-flow-into-all-others style, but...even playfully, if you're gonna talk about how we can('t) save the world, even playfully and personally, even metaphorically and from a non-expert position, it's gotta go further than Priuses and plastic straws. HOWEVER: <3 the syntax, mostly.

[Lexi Baney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Throughout Sustainability: a Love Story, Nicole Walker portrays the idea of optimism versus pessimism as she writes about environmentalism. The idea of this argument is seen throughout the essays: “The End of the Coffee Is the End of the World,” “Revolution,” “In the End, We Will Fight Over Cheese,” “On Beauty,” and “Regeneration.” Within these essays, Walker addresses both optimism and pessimism through nature, greenhouse technology, the environment, global warming, and her inner self. Walker reveals the underlying meaning of optimism (hope) and pessimism (despair) through her use of images and metaphors. Walker uses these images and metaphors to describe the hope and despair surrounding many worldwide issues. For each public issue that she discusses, she presents both optimistic and pessimistic views which leaves an impact by leading us to believe that the bad is united with the good.
Overall I enjoyed Sustainability: A Love Story. At times I was confused because I could not always derive the underlying meaning that Walker was trying to present. I enjoyed the collection of essays because of her use of optimism and pessimism. It made me view many different scenarios with a different view than normal. I also was interested in the fact that she was able to use so many different images and metaphors to describe a bigger worldwide image. It was interesting to see how creative she was with her metaphors and the deep meaning that was hidden within them.

[Weldon Ryckman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The short version:

Equally an exercise in association as it is an investigation of our relationship with the planet and our caretaking of it, Sustainability is the layers and prisms in which something paradigmatic such as climate change, a disintegrating planet / disintegrating inhabitability of the planet bleed in and through our lives. Read this with abandon (or without, it’s your choice), but understand that reading this book might lead to certain thoughts. Such as perhaps if we look at anything long enough, and with the appropriate attitude, we will begin to observe and intuit the parallels, the associations, the levels of meaning that are hidden within. This is, of course, the conceit of the Object Lessons series: the hidden lives of objects that are contained within. In Sustainability’s case, however, it is not what is contained within sustainability (or climate change) but the ways in which climate change is contained in just about everything: its effects multiple, harrowing, gawkish.

In reading this book, you will no doubt begin to observe this, uh, phenomenon in your life, but you will also learn of the human side. For as much as it’s about the planet, climate change, our (mis)treatment of the planet, the futility of individuality re: a planet, Sustainability is a long and sad story about a narrator trying to keep it all together, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, sometimes, compromising, always coping. And in reading it we are all the better.

The long version:

Not really long (actually shorter than the short version), but different. Here are some things you should know:

On a chapter level, Walker has brought to us consumable bits, which feels necessary given the subject, because as much as Sustainability (and sustainability) is about love and living, it’s just as much about death and dying.

On a paragraph level, Walker’s language has a hooking quality, which dovetails with the prismatic (I hope I don’t wear this word out: the tread is deep but everything has a shelf life) viewing that’s working in this book. In any given chapter, a particular word may take on seven different meanings or associations, creating a web. Perhaps the web is a safety net. A safety net of meaning against the rising, subsuming tide.

On a sentence level, observe Walker’s electricity/sparks/sparkles/staccato. Nicole’s voice is sharp, sometimes taking hairpin turns around close edges from one sentence to the next, other times coming to a full stop.

Go buy it from your local bookseller?

[Lyncia Begay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nicole Walker’s Sustainability dazzles readers with humor, proximity, and her willingness— even openhandedness, as a matter of responsibility— to make herself indivisible from civilization’s collective carbon. Through this framing, Walker makes responsibility cathartic and dare I say fun by braiding concentric themes that pull us into ideas with the momentum that, realizes, yes it’s true we can’t drink because there is no recycling bin for that glass bottle, and yes, the inner world is rife with the same self-sabotage mirrored in the ecological body that is succumbing to irreparable catastrophe. Much of this, a reader can comfortably realize due to Walker’s adroit braiding that transitions from light to heavy by summoning the kind of misdirection that position us for surprise; as readers we end up laughing rather than crying, thinking of the southwest when we feel like wasting water, recycling rather than drinking another bottle of wine, etc...

Non-fiction, in the hands of Walker makes sustainability newfangled rather than the resounding doom that the 21st century is often directed toward. Walker’s attention to the Colorado Plateau allows her to do this, making oneself a vehicle to reflect the places, people, conditions, and the concerns that follow, with ease. For instance, in “A Count” there is discourse and I would say philosophical query (based on the title) that is focused on the purpose and even uselessness of statistics within a culture that values logic but can disassociate from the reality of those statistics. With non-fiction prowess the author inverts this neuronal habit by taking statistics and meriting them with the personal, so that it is not merely an insular portrayal but a trifecta of truths that is most powerful when held in the light that demands that a reader’s head hold all the truths (a muscle that is often much needed these days). Additionally, in “A Count” something that doesn’t happen in the world of most non-fiction works even though it should happen, happens—Indigenous people are acknowledged. This is a constant practice throughout Sustainability. In “Sustenance” the suicide of a 14 year-old boy corresponds to an earth’s predicted demise, always lacking choice—or so they(we?) thought. Like an immune system, the whole world, in Sustainability is constantly trying to awake to the peril it has been patterned into—of which includes the people, the bats, the fires, and carbon. Walker’s writing, as does anyone’s thinking (or lack of), conjures a consciousness within a larger organism, asking us to be alive and cognizant so we can laugh at all of it and realize we want to live it and do the thing that makes it livable and enjoyable.

Overall, I would give this book 5/5. If you want to become a better person, reader, writer, and/or understand what and how big non-fiction can be, I would highly recommend Nicole Walker’s Sustainability.

[Florence Asiedu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sustainability is not an easy read in my opinion it requires thinking and comes with a lot of questions on what she is perceiving. I feel like once you grasp what she is talking about the book begins to make more sense. Walker is inviting you in to her personal life and her thoughts about the environment she talks about her marriage and compares parts of it to environmental issues such as oil spills. Nicole Walker can be pessimistic but she some hows finds a way to see optimism though the issues. She uses a lot of metaphors to see her personally but make you aware about the environment. So I decided to give her 3/5 because personally it took me a while to understand what she meant.

Walker compares her marriage to a forest and it is burning down she says “ It was not easy to set on fire but once we did, well, can we put it out?” (Walker 42). It is hard to find optimism in a pit of despair when you feel like everything is burning down and the fire is taking down everything in its path. Having hope when your marriage is like an oil spill you want to fix, love, and cradle it but with more arguments more oil slips through. Eventually Walker wonders how she is going to fix her marriage and “How to love someone after all that previous squashing?” (Walker 44). Once something is scorched it is hard to have hope of ever seeing something come back it takes time. Walker talks about the ruined forest “In a ruined forest, burned, destroyed, the trees might come back. They don’t come back through sweetness. They don’t come back through kindness. Trees come back through hardness…” (Walker 44). In life there is hope and you can always make a come back it is hard work but it is possible. Eventually Walker and her husband rekindle and they come together as one they both look out for possible triggers and are trying to be optimistic so they can rebuild their forest. Erik Walker “believes love can be reborn, regenerated” (Walker 45). If love can be regenerated so can the Earth even though humans are polluting it.

[Jake M · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that Sustainability: a Love Story, is something that Nicole Walker definitely put a lot of time and effort into. Many of the essays within this book allow the reader to not only be met with challenging material, but also have something to think about long after the reading is done. Much of what is presented not only has to do with the environment, cool metaphors, stories about a destructive relationship, but it also has the ability to make us think about our own lives. In an article by the Ohio State Press, talking about different sources that reviewed Walker’s book, provides us with a look into what other readers had to say about her thoughts in these essays. “With her sobering and at times darkly humorous writing, Walker brings a refreshingly original perspective to sustainability. She is at once pessimistic and optimistic, somewhat fearful and cautiously hopeful. . . . Her book is a challenge to others to think about the unique role they can play in sustaining the planet.” —Foreword Reviews. These essays made me think about myself and had me asking the question, “Do I have a pessimistic or optimistic outlook on life?” Throughout this paper, I have found that my outlook tends to lean toward optimism, and I believe that that was one of the goals by Walker in writing this book. She wanted us to see things through both lenses in order to have a healthy outlook on our world around us and life itself.
I enjoyed reading Walker's essay because not only did it provide insight into her own personal experiences, but it also made me reflect on my own life. Much of what is presented in this book allows the reader to further evaluate situations that we might come in to contact with regards to pessimism and optimism. I enjoyed how each of the essays presented all tied back to one another in different ways. In saying so I believe that Sustainability: a Love Story is worth the read and allows the reader to think about each essay long after you are done.

[Tim Aydelott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part memoir, part call to action, part distillation of scientific research, full of humanity and humor, this unique book, like any good love story, depicts the complexity of loving. Loving the earth and treating it well--sustainably--is at the core of the book, as the cover suggests, but the author's loving relationships with her family--her husband, siblings, children, father, and mother--and with her friends, and with herself, are just as important. Each connection brings joy, satisfaction, exhilaration, frustration, disappointment, pain, and self-reflection.

All this complexity could become overwhelming for the reader and for the person living it, but Walker's writing maintains a sense of humor that balances the problems she explores--problems, she makes abundantly clear, that threaten the future of humanity. "If we don't change our ways, we're gonna ruin this planet for future generations" isn't a fun message to deliver, but if we can't laugh at ourselves, as when Walker tells an anecdote about giving a nasty stare to an idling, gas guzzling, oblivious driver and thinking, "I'm glaring at you on behalf of the polar bears," then we are truly lost.

Told against a backdrop of extended drought in the author's town of Flagstaff, Arizona, and venturing to her youth in Salt Lake City and the utopia that Portland, Oregon represents, "Sustainability: a Love Story" can be challenging as it wrestles with science and our fellow human beings, but it's worth a sustained reading, and it will give readers renewed energy to take on the causes and struggles they face. It's a hidden gem.

[Eric Susak · Rating 5 out of 5]

To me, this is not a book about trying to live an ecologically sustainable life, despite its title and content and apparent purpose. Humanity's problem is not our ability to reuse, reduce, and recycle, or to harvest energy from the sun or wind. Our problem is that we can't solve our loneliness, and worse, that we can't even understand the scope of our unconscious, self-imposed isolation from all other things. As Nicole Walker points out, we live in contradictions. We are simultaneously all made of the same material, fundamentally intertwined, and then try to separate ourselves by classifications, groups, physical distance. "The reason to pump sulfur into the atmosphere is so that something will come between us and the sun" (75). We try to distance ourselves from the sun because we think it's harming us, without recognizing that we came from its core.

Most of the leg work of this book is done with the author's honesty about her relationship with her husband. She doesn't hold back her little grievances, her big angers and fears. And neither does she neglect the small acts that reorient her in a loving relationship. As with addiction, our problem in living sustainably originates in our inability to form genuine connection. "We're all trying to get out of here, it seems, through guns or lists or heroin...I don't know how many people who can stand up straight, all by themselves, and look the world in the eye all day long" (143-144). We need each other to stand, to put down the alcohol and really experience each other. And we need to start doing this with our ecosystems, too, to start connecting with where we live and seeing ourselves in the water.

[Maria Dodaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walker is a unique author who writes freely, and she easily expresses her inner emotions, but she struggles throughout the book to find peace within herself because of the many conflicts she must overcome. Walker is very open to the reader about the struggles in her life. Her writing style can be difficult for a reader to understand, so analyzing the text can be challenging. Her writing tends to have scattered thoughts so following along with the text can be difficult. Walkers’ concern with the environment is so great that it affects her everyday life and relationships with those she loves. She envisions the future and feels guilty while thinking about the possibility that her children may suffer. She creates the worst possible scenarios in her mind and then shares them with her daughter, who becomes afraid. In addition to her relationship with her daughter, Walker’s constant stress about the environment affects her marriage. She has the tendency to easily be triggered by environmental issues, which leads a small confrontation with her husband into a large battle. She is open about personal problems and her thoughts on public matters. Throughout the text, Walker is very open to the fact that she is unstable and stressed. I appreciated her vulnerability and learning about her inner thoughts made the book more interesting. I feel as if I personally know Nicole Walker after reading this book. Although it was one of the most challenging books I have read, it was one of my favorites. Her writing style is so unique and her thoughts about the environment were shocking to me. The book held my attention while making me rethink my definition of sustainability.

[Kita Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

“But this planet! It’s a bigger mess than me.” In her book of essays Sustainability: A Love Story, Nicole Walker uses different rhetorical appeals to educate her readers about our perishing planet, and she often uses her personal experiences to enhance her ideas. Walker creates these essays through her bright irony, humor, and her realization that everybody is not perfect, especially her. Throughout her essays, she is very effective at getting her point across to her readers through an inviting voice. This inviting voice is saying, “Hey these are my thoughts and I think I am pretty credible to explain them. I might not be the best at it, but follow along and let’s go!” Sustainability: A Love Story is the perfect starter book for the beginning environmentalist. In fact, this book is perfect for all types of environmentalist; the lazy one, the crazy one, and the would-be environmentalist. Nicole Walker takes crazy spins in this book, as she sways between optimism and pessimism. To a point, Walker is so pessimistic that she is almost optimistic. In this book of essays Walker defines sustainability, but it doesn’t just confine to going green, Walker ties in personal experiences as to why sustainability can define multiple different ideas. In my opinion, Walker does a great job at tying everything together for her readers. She puts in an effort to connect to her readers on different levels. I would recommend this book to anybody considering going green, because it is really eye-opening and makes the reader consider making the small changes in their life.

[Brittany Henson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I give this book a 4 out of 5 stars because I think the book is interesting and talks about topics that should be talked about more. This book is a collection of environmental essays, and talks about the effects of climate change on the world as a whole and how it affects people’s everyday lives. Nicole Walker’s writing can be a bit confusing at times, she will start talking about climate change then will go into a tangent about how it affects her family and her. There were times I would be lost when reading and would have to go back and reread a page or two because she jumps from “rant” to “rant”. I read this book for my freshman english class in college and we had discussion after reading two essays at a time which enhanced my reading and understanding of the book and Walker’s writing.
In her essay “On Beauty” Nicole quotes a romantic poet John Keats,“Another kind of negative capability, another kind of intelligence- being able to be so happy we are alive even though we are so sad we are going to die. There’s something beautiful about the idea we are all dying together,” (274). The negative capability phrase is to characterise the capacity of the greatest writer, Shakeseare, to pursue a vision of artistic beauty even when it leads them into intellectual confusion and uncertainty. I think this explains Walker’s writing because she is taking the idea of climate change and incorporating it in her essay to make her readers uncertain of their views and of the planet’s and their future.

[Cameron · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the book, Sustainability: a Love Story, Nicole Walker writes about many the environment through short essays. Throughout many of Walker’s essays she brings up her personal life and then turns it around and relates it to what is going on with the Earth.She uses metaphors throughout her essays to help the reader understand what she is saying about her marriage and the world. Walker writes about the environment and how humans are slowly destroying the Earth. She relates the deteriorating earth with her broken marriage with her husband, Erik, through many metaphors. Walker also talks a lot about her daughter, Zoe, who is growing up in this already destroyed earth. She relates her personal life to the environment to show how these things are similar but are also different. These two battles, her marriage and trying to do her part in saving the Earth puts a big toll on herself.
I thought the book was very good. Having to read a book is usually hard to get me to do but I was very entertained by this book. It helped me think of the many issues we have going on around the world. By her mixing her personal and global issues, it helps the reader get a better understanding with what she is saying. Using many metaphors throughout the book, gives the reader an opportunity to think of their own ways of her meaning. During cass, my classmates and I would think that some things meant different than what other people thought. No one was wrong about what it was about. She wants the readers to have their own take on what she is trying to explain through her very jumpy writing.

[McKeon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicole Walker's book is a bit different from the typical books I choose to read. While most non-fiction books have order and are focused on structure, Sustainability A Love Story is somewhat unorganized. Walker's style of changing pace, topic, and tone constantly is very unique and definitely a type of writing that everyone should enjoy at least once. She can deliver bursts of information and thoughts from her head in short paragraphs, change the subject and go right back to it. Additionally, her way of writing sounds formal but addresses topics informally. The structure of her sentences is very formal but her choice of vocabulary heavily contrasts, which is a bit of irony that I enjoyed from the book. Along with her unique style, she addresses some tough topics about environmentalism and her personal life. She finds interesting ways to intertwine both topics and make them relevant. About environmentalism, she focuses on the long term problems for the Earth and the struggle of her every day activities and how they affect the Earth. She also goes into how her husband and children matter in the well-being of the Earth as well. Overall, throughout the book she finds a balance between her negative thoughts and the little things in life. It's an interesting concept, even if the negatives outweigh the positives. All in all I would recommend Sustainability to anyone who wants to stray from the traditional formal writing setting and journey into a book about tough topics of environmentalism and personal life. 

[Baelyn Carey · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the novel Sustainability: A Love Story, Nicole Walker writes about her love life and the concept of the world ending. She writes using a pessimistic point of view in multiple essays, but adds a silver lining. She balances optimism and pessimism to convey to the reader that there is hope within despair. She urges the reader to make small changes to save the planet, with an overall goal to balance the good and the bad. It may be doubtful that we can save the planet, but we can still try.
I am not typically interested in this type of novel, but Walker is able to add just enough humor to keep the reader interested. Going on and on about how we should live our lives and ways we can save the world can become boring. Walker adds stories about her personal life to demonstrate to the reader that she understands. She knows that it is impossible to live every day sustainably. Sometimes she also feels the need to use plastic bags and buy non organic meat. But, she makes you think about your impact, and she urges you to do the little things.
Although her writing is exciting and insightful in some essays, in others Walker tends to wander off from her point. In some of her essays, her writing is anxious and rushed. Although this can be good, it began to become confusing. She would speak nonsense for pages, and it would not connect back to her overall theme of the essay. But, the overall point she makes in each of her essays makes the novel worth the read.

[Lexy Dray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicole Walkers "Sustainability" in my opinion, is a tough read. It will challenge you mentally, but as you dig deeper you will find the meanings she is trying to show. When it comes to issues about our environmental crisis, Walker can seem both pessimistic and optimistic. Walker also talks about her failing marriage, and compares those problems to environmental issues in today's society. For example, in "Are we going to make it" Walker talks about how a "forest" represents her marriage, and how it is burning down. She says that once the trees are gone, they stand in the burn. Walker also goes on to talk about an Oil Spill. She says, "It's like watching an Oil Spill. You want to cup your hands to pick it up, cradle it, rock it back to sleep, but the oil slips through your fingers." This shows how to Walker, it seems like there's nothing she can do to fix her marriage. Nothing she can do to make it go back to normal. Erik (her husband) believes that love can be reborn and regenerated, but Walker believes that is not the case. This is an example as to why Walker is pessimistic, she always seems to find the bad and everything, but she shows that through environmental issues going on in todays society. Walker is just trying to live, while doing as little damage as she possibly can. In the end, everything in our life sustains us, and Walker shows that. If you have a strong mind and don't mind digging into deeper meanings, this book is for you.

[Kristin Breininger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicole Walker's "Sustainability A Love Story," the mix of big world issues of sustainability with her own shows readers that sustainability does not only have to be about the earth. Walker thinks of her own issues interchangeably with what is going on around her in the world. She constantly thinks about how she is impacting the world, whether it is sustainability of the earth, her marriage, or children's future.
For example, in her essay “Are We Going to Make It,” she relates her marriage to an oil spill saying, “It’s like watching an oil spill. You want to cup your hands to pick it up, cradle it, rock it back to sleep, but the oil slips through your fingers” (42). Although she may be hinting towards issues in her marriage, she uses the metaphor of an oil spill to inform people that there are still bigger issues going on other than our own. She writes, “It’s hard to worry about the distant disaster when everyday disasters are so immediate” (41). She uses similes and metaphors throughout her essay to show that she takes notice of those bigger issues affecting our environment while still focusing on the issues that immediately affect her. Although environmental sustainability is directly addressed throughout the book, the comparison of world issues with her own shows that sustainability of the earth is something that intercalated within her life.

[haleigh collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Nicole Walker’s Sustainability a Love Story, is brilliantly and uniquely written. Although this book was difficult to follow at first, the writing style is what makes this book exceptional. Walker compares her personal experiences to larger environmental issues and talks about how she wishes she could fix these issues. Walker guides the readers through her hardship of relationship issues and distracted view of the future. Once we finish this collection of essays, it leaves us thinking more deeply about sustainability, and what we can do to fix the planet, or if could even fix it in the first place. We also walk away viewing the world as something to be appreciative of. We shouldn’t take the lilac bushes and the cold beer for granted. Walker is trying to tell us a story, while also showing the importance of viewing the opportunities planted in front of us. Giving us a reason to keep going, and a new view on the earth and what we can do to make it a better place for the next generations to come. I personally believe that Walker’s main goal from writing and publishing this book is to prove that there is something wrong with the planet, but there are so many beautiful things as well. I strongly recommend this book to anyone looking for a way to balance environmental sustainability and everyday life.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Sustainability: A Love Story, Nicole Walker writes about big picture issues like environmentalism and ties in real life stories and experiences about her personal life. Throughout the book Walker uses optimism and pessimism to express many of her ideas. Comparing something so sad and down to something happier and uplifting. In doing so Walker helps me to allow myself to look at the more positive side of things despite their negativeness in the world. I enjoy what Walker writes about with her personal life and how she compares it to environmentalism and a failing human race. I think she gives the readers good comparisons using her real life for us to better understand the big issues with humans and environmentalism today. Her stories help me to see environmentalism in a different light and they really made me think in different ways which I enjoyed as well. Overall Nicole Walker has a very unique writing style. Not like other books I have read. She seems disorganized and a lot of the time overwhelmed by her own stories and life and it shows through in her writing. At times I was very confused while reading Sustainability: A Love Story. But I would say it is an interesting read and for sure worth it if you are someone who is interested in issued involving climate change and how to live a more sustainable life.

[Patrick Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicole Walker’s Sustainability: a Love Story really does encapsulate the classic idea of love and true modern idea of sustainability. Weaving together these ideas into beautifully written essays, Walker does show the reader what it is like to be in love, hurt, scared, but also hopeful for the future. There is no better book to read for the current state we are in, and Walker calls all of us to make a change in the world. Walker not only opens up on her personal life, but she states facts, data, and information about the environment that helps give context of the plot.
I really did enjoy this book. I thought it was a very interesting read. The topics were raw, and nothing was really that abstract. Though Walker used metaphors, it was easy to understand what she was talking about because she makes it very clear. Sustainability: a Love Story was very different than any other book that I have read. Because of it’s unique qualities and interesting storytelling, it kept me engaged and wanting to keep reading. For these reasons, Nicole Walker’s Sustainability: a Love Story is an important read for the us today. The essays should not only be seen as a quality piece of literature, but a wake up call to better ourselves for the people around us.

[Lexi Price · Rating 3 out of 5]

Walker’s collection of essays Sustainability: a Love Story is one of the first books I have ever read by her. Her first chapter I was confused and thought I was going to hate the rest of the essays. As I read further on, I realized it was not so bad and I learned to enjoy it. Her confusion lead me to continue reading to want to understand what she is trying to say. Her anger was shown through the environment while also relating to her relationship with her family, mostly her husband. All she wants to do is live the most sustainable life possible, but it is beyond hard in the world we live in today. In one of her essays she states all the ways people could be sustainable, some of her examples are by riding a bike instead of driving a carl, recycling, and buying local goods. One of the statements she made that stood out to me was when she had said calling yourself a good person often makes you out to be a bad one. She says this because she said she was a good person by recycling her wine bottles, when she should not even be drinking wine in the first place. All around I enjoyed Walker’s unique way of writing and would recommend reading this collection of essays.

[Fc960718 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nicole Walker's, 'Sustainability: A Love Story' is an interesting take on sharing her personal relationship with her husband and her current views on the environment. She goes at most topics very pessimistically, as some would over these two topics. She does seem to find a more optimistic point of view on some of the more detailed topics. She has hope that her children's generation will turn around the suffering environment. Walker is very hypocritical in her environmental views. She speaks down on a man who drives a big SUV and sits with his car idling in the children's school parking lot, but she is doing just the same thing but her vehicle is off. If she were to be as big as an advocate for the environment as she seems to portray herself as, then she would be going the extra mile of using public transit or biking to get from point A to point B. She also wouldn't be driving miles just to go to some winery restaurant with her family, when they could enjoy that in the comfort of their own home without burning toxic fumes in the air. my overall opinion of Nicole Walker is that she counters many of her opinions in the different essays.

[Bryce Ratliff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review for English 1510
Nicole Walker has a type of writing style that is unique from most other famous authors. Her rollercoaster of optimism and pessimism sets her apart from the rest. She used a quote from Samuel Beckett, and it truly shows her way of thinking, “I must go on. I can’t go on. I will go on.” This demonstrates her thought process. She has to keep pushing for her husband and kids. She can’t go on because she thinks the Earth is crumbling and dying around her. Finally, she will go on, because she makes a conscious decision to keep going in this world and to find the positives in each situation.
Throughout Sustainability A Love Story, Walker seems a little scattered, but this is because she wants to show the audience how her brain works. The reader can truly feel some of the emotions that Walker portrays throughout the book. She is constantly shifting back and forth between global issues and personal issues. This adds another layer to the book that allows readers to think and ponder about their own connections as well. Overall this book was a very well written book, but the reader needs to take time to engage with the text to find the deeper themes.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nicole Walker presents a wide variety of topics in this book from things like marriage to the environmental crisis, but she goes about presenting them in a rather interesting fashion. The way she presents them can seem rather disconnected and that may very well be the purpose. This can seem interesting to some but may seem frustrating to others due to the fact the point being made may not be entirely clear. I feel that is maybe the point though. For example when it comes to things about our environmental crisis that Walker brings up she can seem both pessimistic and optimistic. You often do not find someone who shows both at the same exact time but that is what happens. I feel that maybe she presents both optimism and pessimism and then leaves us in the middle to form our own judgment, and or to maybe take a step back and see the bigger picture. So while the book can seem rather confusing at first as you read more you start to pick up on how Walker presents her ideas, and then they start to make a bit more sense.

[Dominic Farinacci · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the book, Sustainability: A Love Story, Nicole Walker writes with a great amount of figurative language, especially her use of metaphors to compare public issues and private struggles. She uses slick comparisons that may catch readers off guard and cause confusion at first, but after the first couple of chapters readers begin to realize the meaning behind every line and truly understand her unique style. Throughout the entire book, Walker talks about family problems, mostly about her relationship with her husband Eric. When Walker touches on soft topics such as this, she uses complications in the world, such as global warming, pollution, wildfires, and other issues in society to describe how challenging things are in her life. Nicole Walker writes in a very interesting way that keeps a readers attention from the opening page till the end. This book is a perfect example of this and that is why I rated it five out of five stars. If you are looking for a enjoyable read filled with drama, joy, sorrow, and most of all great figurative language, this is the book for you.