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Subpar Parks
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Humor (2021)Based on the wildly popular Instagram account, Subpar Parks features both the greatest hits and brand-new content, all celebrating the incredible beauty and variety of America's national parks juxtaposed with the clueless and hilarious one-star reviews posted by visitors.
Subpar Parks, both on the popular Instagram page and in this humorous, informative, and collectible book, combines two things that seem like they might not work together yet somehow harmonize perfectly: beautiful illustrations and informative, amusing text celebrating each national park paired with the one-star reviews disappointed tourists have left online. Millions of visitors each year enjoy Glacier National Park, but for one visitor, it was simply Too cold for me! Another saw the mind-boggling vistas of Bryce Canyon as Too spiky! Never mind the person who visited the thermal pools at Yellowstone National Park and left thinking, "Save yourself some money, boil some water at home."
Featuring more than 50 percent new material, the book will include more depth and insight into the most popular parks, such as Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and Acadia National Parks; anecdotes and tips from rangers; and much more about author Amber Share's personal love and connection to the outdoors. Equal parts humor and love for the national parks and the great outdoors, it's the perfect gift for anyone who loves to spend time outside as well as have a good read (and laugh) once they come indoors.
Subpar Parks, both on the popular Instagram page and in this humorous, informative, and collectible book, combines two things that seem like they might not work together yet somehow harmonize perfectly: beautiful illustrations and informative, amusing text celebrating each national park paired with the one-star reviews disappointed tourists have left online. Millions of visitors each year enjoy Glacier National Park, but for one visitor, it was simply Too cold for me! Another saw the mind-boggling vistas of Bryce Canyon as Too spiky! Never mind the person who visited the thermal pools at Yellowstone National Park and left thinking, "Save yourself some money, boil some water at home."
Featuring more than 50 percent new material, the book will include more depth and insight into the most popular parks, such as Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and Acadia National Parks; anecdotes and tips from rangers; and much more about author Amber Share's personal love and connection to the outdoors. Equal parts humor and love for the national parks and the great outdoors, it's the perfect gift for anyone who loves to spend time outside as well as have a good read (and laugh) once they come indoors.
219 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 24, 2021
327 people are currently reading
11611 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 693 reviews
August 19, 2021
This book has cool facts and a basic description of each park, but I thought it would be more of a compilation of bad reviews, rather than a mini travel guide.
November 22, 2021
I’m not sure what the point of this book is. It shares one sentence (if that) of a bad review per park, then there’s the same unfunny derpy response from the author (basically some version of “well what’d you expect, idiot?” over and over). It definitely needed a lot more bad reviews and better commentary if it was trying to be in the humor genre. So maybe it was trying to be a travel book? If so, it did a poor job with that. The information about the parks is elementary at best. It certainly wasn’t a photography book because there’s zero pictures of the parks or anything she talks about - just her drawings, which quite frankly, all look the exact same. Then there’s her clout chasing comments she makes every other page at how the park names should be changed. I couldn’t roll my eyes hard enough.
This honestly just felt like a quick way to try and monetize Instagram content.
This honestly just felt like a quick way to try and monetize Instagram content.
November 16, 2025
I saw this book on a Buzzfeed gift list and thought it would be great for "my" students, so I bought it.
While the tone was not for me, I feel I'm probably in the minority. Either way, there are some really groovy facts and the format seems welcoming for self-professed "non-readers", so I still plan to introduce this to some of my favorite classrooms and I'll let the students be the judges.
While the tone was not for me, I feel I'm probably in the minority. Either way, there are some really groovy facts and the format seems welcoming for self-professed "non-readers", so I still plan to introduce this to some of my favorite classrooms and I'll let the students be the judges.
March 13, 2025
Subpar Parks would never have been on my radar except for it being a unique book club choice. It’s a hysterical premise. Amber Share provides the stupidest one star review she could find for each of the 63 National Parks she covers. She then goes on to give a brief recap of what the park is known for. Favorite one star review: “I didn’t even get to touch lava.” Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
I felt I learned a lot about some of the parks I hadn’t visited. I appreciated that where appropriate, she included info about the indigenous tribes that lived on the land. In some cases, I ended up googling images of those parks. For instance, I wanted to see what an Arctic Sand Dune looked like (Kabuk Valley in Alaska). A picture being worth a thousand words, I wish Share had included a few photographs to supplement her drawings which were on the primitive side. It was also a trip down memory lane for those parks we had seen. And I came up with a few ideas of ones I’d still like to see.
Make sure to read this on something other than an e-book as the illustrations will just be in black and white. The kindle app on my iPad worked well.
I felt I learned a lot about some of the parks I hadn’t visited. I appreciated that where appropriate, she included info about the indigenous tribes that lived on the land. In some cases, I ended up googling images of those parks. For instance, I wanted to see what an Arctic Sand Dune looked like (Kabuk Valley in Alaska). A picture being worth a thousand words, I wish Share had included a few photographs to supplement her drawings which were on the primitive side. It was also a trip down memory lane for those parks we had seen. And I came up with a few ideas of ones I’d still like to see.
Make sure to read this on something other than an e-book as the illustrations will just be in black and white. The kindle app on my iPad worked well.
December 31, 2021
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 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!
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 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!
December 28, 2021
Pretty unimpressive: all negative reviews, real risk of papercuts, and few to no indoor activities included. Mostly just a book. Would it have killed the writer to include some videos?
October 6, 2021
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, 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!
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, 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!
December 26, 2024
Bought as a Christmas gift for my husband after we visited two national parks in a relatively short period of time (Glacier in Montana and Zion in Utah) and joked about the fact that we really aren’t their target audience.
The book is just O.K. There’s only one negative review included for each park and I was hoping for more. Then there are pretty illustrations by the author and basic information on each park (which could have been fact checked a bit better. On one page there’s a reference to the world’s tallest tree, and its height, and on the very next page another tree, in a different park is said to be the world’s tallest tree (if the heights are correct, it was the first.) Mistakes like that kill me.)
So, it’s really just a primer on the national parks with one semi-funny negative review. Cute idea but the execution could have been so much more fun.
The book is just O.K. There’s only one negative review included for each park and I was hoping for more. Then there are pretty illustrations by the author and basic information on each park (which could have been fact checked a bit better. On one page there’s a reference to the world’s tallest tree, and its height, and on the very next page another tree, in a different park is said to be the world’s tallest tree (if the heights are correct, it was the first.) Mistakes like that kill me.)
So, it’s really just a primer on the national parks with one semi-funny negative review. Cute idea but the execution could have been so much more fun.
July 5, 2022
I just came back from Alaska and loved it, was thrilled by it, and was reminded of the hilariously ignorant reviews of National Parks I had read online from time to time. It appears that Amber Samnee also read this very article, as she quotes from it without attribution, though maybe these quotes have just gone viral over the internet, dunno:
https://www.farandwide.com/s/funniest...
Here's some of them:
Arches National Park:
"This park was extremely underwhelming. I went in with low expectations ready to see a couple rocks with holes, instead what I saw were many stone pillars that resembled circumcised donkey d***s. Overall has some pretty nice rocks though don't take the kids!"
Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park:
"Paid $20 to get in. Didn't even get to touch lava."
Grand Canyon:
"Whoopity do, Grand Canyon. You are a giant hole in the ground. You were caused by erosion. You don't have roller coasters or Dippin' Dots. Jeeesh. Can you say 'overrated?'"
Great Sand Dunes National Park:
"It's a big mountain of sand."
Yosemite:
"BTW the park shuts off some of the waterfalls after mid-summer. This is probably due to dwindling Park Service budgets that are spent on toilet paper. Please protest this fiscal mismanagement by STAYING AWAY from Yosemite!
Also, there are bears in Yosemite. They practice breaking into cars. Do you want a bear to break into your car? STAY AWAY!"
The book is a kind of illustrated response to this ignorance, citing a bad review briefly then telling why it is false. I guess I was hoping for more funny, but it does have humor in it on every page.
https://www.farandwide.com/s/funniest...
Here's some of them:
Arches National Park:
"This park was extremely underwhelming. I went in with low expectations ready to see a couple rocks with holes, instead what I saw were many stone pillars that resembled circumcised donkey d***s. Overall has some pretty nice rocks though don't take the kids!"
Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park:
"Paid $20 to get in. Didn't even get to touch lava."
Grand Canyon:
"Whoopity do, Grand Canyon. You are a giant hole in the ground. You were caused by erosion. You don't have roller coasters or Dippin' Dots. Jeeesh. Can you say 'overrated?'"
Great Sand Dunes National Park:
"It's a big mountain of sand."
Yosemite:
"BTW the park shuts off some of the waterfalls after mid-summer. This is probably due to dwindling Park Service budgets that are spent on toilet paper. Please protest this fiscal mismanagement by STAYING AWAY from Yosemite!
Also, there are bears in Yosemite. They practice breaking into cars. Do you want a bear to break into your car? STAY AWAY!"
The book is a kind of illustrated response to this ignorance, citing a bad review briefly then telling why it is false. I guess I was hoping for more funny, but it does have humor in it on every page.
July 17, 2021
Funny, interesting and beautifully illustrated. I can’t wait to be super unimpressed by nature myself and complain about things like not getting to touch flaming hot lava or thinking how I just could have boiled water at home instead of dragging my ass all the way there to just see some hot springs.
Just get tickets to a theme park next time guys.
Just get tickets to a theme park next time guys.
December 31, 2023
You know the feeling when someone gets you a book for Christmas and it is not something that you would ever read on your own, or even pick up off of the shelf, but you feel obligated to read it since it was a gift? Yeah, that is me with this book. So I am going to keep my review to a few items - it's not the author's fault that I read a book I was not interested in. Nonetheless, this will be an unpopular review on here, based on the large number of positive reviews that this book has received.
This book failed for me on multiple levels. First, it failed as humor. I did not find Amber Share's sense of humor and constant snarky comments to be funny or amusing. Some of her writing I found to be childish, like when she says "whomp whomp". I do get that she is trying to make fun of stupid reviews left by people who have visited some of this country's most popular and iconic national parks. However, we don't get to read the reviews. All Share has done is pull one phrase from a review, such as "very large hole" and then launch into a few paragraphs about the park that was reviewed by this unknown to us person.
Which brings me to another area that failed: this seems to be a case of false advertising. The title suggests that this will be a compendium of incredibly stupid reviews and comments left by idiots. But we don't get that. We just get Share cherry-picking one phrase or sentence. No other context is provided.
This also fails as a travel guide. There is not enough information here to help someone who may be considering visiting one of these parks. Share goes surface-level at best in describing what the parks are and where they are located. This is bare-bones history and geography. I get that she didn't design the book for that, but given that it failed in the humor section I was hoping maybe she made up for it elsewhere.
And finally it failed as art. In her introduction, she is quite pleased with herself and her art. She described it as "minimalist". I will agree there. You either like that kind or art or you don't. I don't. If there were actual pictures of these beautiful places, that would be much different. But there aren't.
So that really leaves me with not liking all of the main elements of the book. If you like snarky comments, minimalist art, and a dash of basic information about a national park, then this is the book for you. All I can hope for is that I don't get any potential future books of Share's as gifts.
This book failed for me on multiple levels. First, it failed as humor. I did not find Amber Share's sense of humor and constant snarky comments to be funny or amusing. Some of her writing I found to be childish, like when she says "whomp whomp". I do get that she is trying to make fun of stupid reviews left by people who have visited some of this country's most popular and iconic national parks. However, we don't get to read the reviews. All Share has done is pull one phrase from a review, such as "very large hole" and then launch into a few paragraphs about the park that was reviewed by this unknown to us person.
Which brings me to another area that failed: this seems to be a case of false advertising. The title suggests that this will be a compendium of incredibly stupid reviews and comments left by idiots. But we don't get that. We just get Share cherry-picking one phrase or sentence. No other context is provided.
This also fails as a travel guide. There is not enough information here to help someone who may be considering visiting one of these parks. Share goes surface-level at best in describing what the parks are and where they are located. This is bare-bones history and geography. I get that she didn't design the book for that, but given that it failed in the humor section I was hoping maybe she made up for it elsewhere.
And finally it failed as art. In her introduction, she is quite pleased with herself and her art. She described it as "minimalist". I will agree there. You either like that kind or art or you don't. I don't. If there were actual pictures of these beautiful places, that would be much different. But there aren't.
So that really leaves me with not liking all of the main elements of the book. If you like snarky comments, minimalist art, and a dash of basic information about a national park, then this is the book for you. All I can hope for is that I don't get any potential future books of Share's as gifts.
February 17, 2022
4.2⭐️
Good book for a coffee table. Love that the author included little snippets for each of the parks and some tips along with her graphics. She also gives history on native tribes and how they’ve been impacted which was something I wasn’t previously aware of. Excited to add some of them to Alex and I’s travel list!!!
Good book for a coffee table. Love that the author included little snippets for each of the parks and some tips along with her graphics. She also gives history on native tribes and how they’ve been impacted which was something I wasn’t previously aware of. Excited to add some of them to Alex and I’s travel list!!!
July 21, 2023
I spotted this book at a bookstore last month and the title stood out to me. For anyone who likes to hike and/or is impressed by America's national parks, this is a book for you.
I loved reading the Reddit and Yelp reviews in which reviewers clearly missed the point of visiting these parks or who are determined to miss the beauty of nature.
In addition to the humor in this book, I found several national parks that I would love to add to my bucket list. The parks detailed in this book range from coast to coast and it was easy to find many parks on my coast that I could visit.
I loved reading the Reddit and Yelp reviews in which reviewers clearly missed the point of visiting these parks or who are determined to miss the beauty of nature.
In addition to the humor in this book, I found several national parks that I would love to add to my bucket list. The parks detailed in this book range from coast to coast and it was easy to find many parks on my coast that I could visit.
May 10, 2022
Amber Share’s Subpar Parks: America’s Most Extraordinary National Parks and Their Least Impressed Visitors isn’t quite what I expected it to be. I thought (probably based on the publisher’s blurb) that it’d be more of a humorous take on what real visitors thought of their experiences at America’s national parks. While that is an aspect of the book, it’s more of a chirpy advertisement/brochure-in-book-form for national parks. I don’t necessarily consider that a bad thing—the national parks are awesome—but 200 pages of basically a brochure makes for some repetitive reading.
Subpar Parks is, physically, a very solid, satisfying book to hold and look through. The design, the illustrations, the lettering—all very attractive and eye-catching. There’s something about the feel of the book and the way it’s organized that reminds me of my elementary school textbooks. Some of that has to be the illustrations: colorful and pleasant and what you see in children’s books (I am not knocking kids’ books; they are often beautifully illustrated). I enjoyed looking at Share’s illustrations (because she is an illustrator and graphic designer) and loved how she illustrated (literally) the humor of someone’s (idiotic and soul dead) complaint about the specific park by putting the quote in fancy fonts against a background illustration of the park. For Mount Rainier National Park, the complaint is: “I’ve seen bigger mountains” and the illustration on that page is of a snow-capped mountain surrounded by trees and reflections in a lake below it. Some of the complaints park visitors have are seriously ridiculous and seriously sad. For Zion National Park (Utah), there are two complaints: “Scenery is distant and impersonal” (wtf?) and “not amazed.” I’ve been to Zion many times and if you can look at that beautiful park with the canyons and the trees and streams and the play of light and shadow and think “meh,” there is definitely something wrong with you.
While I enjoyed all the illustrations and the look of the book, the prose leaves a bit to be desired. The author needs to control her impulsive use of exclamation marks. A little goes a long way. Sentences simply stating facts get exclamation marks: “…it’s [Zion] one-fifth the size of Yosemite but matches it in annual visitors!” (119) or “These two observations combined is where the park gets its name!” (83). Share has a lot of exclamation marks which gives the prose the odd combination of adult-level reading (lots of park facts) written in kid-friendly voice: “So if a hike through mystifying large trees, a bucket list climb up a 14er (a peak exceeding 14,000 feet), or an epic walk up the 350 steps to the top of Moro Rock for a view of the Great Western Divide sounds like your cup of tea, it’s probably worth braving bug bites for!” (63) (The complaint for this park—Sequoia—is: “There are bugs and they will bite you on your face.” This is hilarious because where the hell does this person live? In a hermetically sealed house? Never gone outside and had a bug bite you on your face? Legs, arms, neck, ass?) After dozens of pages of !!!!!, I got a bit exasperated by the author’s traveling show pep rally. Although, I do admire her perseverance. I mean, if someone visits Canyonlands (Utah) or Death Valley (CA/NV) and complains about being bored and thinking the place is ugly, I’d say they aren’t going to be interested in her long list of activities: hiking! Backpacking! Horseback riding! Kayaking! Camping! Stargazing! But, like a patient mother with her cranky 2 yr old, Share keeps trying to please national park visitors who’d probably be happier at home in front of their tvs eating pizza.
Subpar Parks is a wonderfully designed and illustrated book and I did learn some interesting new facts while reading it. However, if you’re going to visit a national park, I wouldn’t really use this book as a guide. I’d actually suggest looking over the resources list she has at the back of the book and visiting the national parks website. You can search by park and find loads of information to help you prepare for your visit (nps.gov).
Subpar Parks is, physically, a very solid, satisfying book to hold and look through. The design, the illustrations, the lettering—all very attractive and eye-catching. There’s something about the feel of the book and the way it’s organized that reminds me of my elementary school textbooks. Some of that has to be the illustrations: colorful and pleasant and what you see in children’s books (I am not knocking kids’ books; they are often beautifully illustrated). I enjoyed looking at Share’s illustrations (because she is an illustrator and graphic designer) and loved how she illustrated (literally) the humor of someone’s (idiotic and soul dead) complaint about the specific park by putting the quote in fancy fonts against a background illustration of the park. For Mount Rainier National Park, the complaint is: “I’ve seen bigger mountains” and the illustration on that page is of a snow-capped mountain surrounded by trees and reflections in a lake below it. Some of the complaints park visitors have are seriously ridiculous and seriously sad. For Zion National Park (Utah), there are two complaints: “Scenery is distant and impersonal” (wtf?) and “not amazed.” I’ve been to Zion many times and if you can look at that beautiful park with the canyons and the trees and streams and the play of light and shadow and think “meh,” there is definitely something wrong with you.
While I enjoyed all the illustrations and the look of the book, the prose leaves a bit to be desired. The author needs to control her impulsive use of exclamation marks. A little goes a long way. Sentences simply stating facts get exclamation marks: “…it’s [Zion] one-fifth the size of Yosemite but matches it in annual visitors!” (119) or “These two observations combined is where the park gets its name!” (83). Share has a lot of exclamation marks which gives the prose the odd combination of adult-level reading (lots of park facts) written in kid-friendly voice: “So if a hike through mystifying large trees, a bucket list climb up a 14er (a peak exceeding 14,000 feet), or an epic walk up the 350 steps to the top of Moro Rock for a view of the Great Western Divide sounds like your cup of tea, it’s probably worth braving bug bites for!” (63) (The complaint for this park—Sequoia—is: “There are bugs and they will bite you on your face.” This is hilarious because where the hell does this person live? In a hermetically sealed house? Never gone outside and had a bug bite you on your face? Legs, arms, neck, ass?) After dozens of pages of !!!!!, I got a bit exasperated by the author’s traveling show pep rally. Although, I do admire her perseverance. I mean, if someone visits Canyonlands (Utah) or Death Valley (CA/NV) and complains about being bored and thinking the place is ugly, I’d say they aren’t going to be interested in her long list of activities: hiking! Backpacking! Horseback riding! Kayaking! Camping! Stargazing! But, like a patient mother with her cranky 2 yr old, Share keeps trying to please national park visitors who’d probably be happier at home in front of their tvs eating pizza.
Subpar Parks is a wonderfully designed and illustrated book and I did learn some interesting new facts while reading it. However, if you’re going to visit a national park, I wouldn’t really use this book as a guide. I’d actually suggest looking over the resources list she has at the back of the book and visiting the national parks website. You can search by park and find loads of information to help you prepare for your visit (nps.gov).
July 5, 2022
A cute, fun coffee table book. I was expecting more humor and less travel guide, but it was interesting nonetheless.
October 26, 2022
This book wasn't what I was expecting at all. I thought it was supposed to be funny, but it wasn't at all. It is basically one line from a negative review, typically something about how boring or uninteresting a park was, then the authors quick response and a page or so about the park itself. It reads a lot more like a travel guide for the parks. Some of it was interesting, but honestly, I skimmed most of it.
Read
January 8, 2022No star rating as I didn't read this cover-to-cover. It wasn't as humorous as I expected/hoped it would be so I just perused it, but it appears to be a good general introduction to the national parks. I read the descriptions for some of the parks I've been lucky enough to visit and they were on target, and I also read about some parks I'd love to visit and found it interesting and informative. I enjoyed the quotes interspersed throughout, for example from John Muir (Muir Woods) or Ansel Adams (Yosemite). There's only a page or two on each park so it's very minimal, if you are actually going to visit a park you'd need to do a lot more research. But, this is nice as an overview.
I really wanted more LOL moments and found the reviews from unimpressed visitors rather a let down, personally. Most if it was just very general comments, nothing too witty about the individual park. For Haleakala, "pretty average experience" says the reviewer. For Rock Creek Park, "not impressed" says the reviewer. Of course, I can marvel at how anyone could feel unmoved by seeing these parks, but the comments didn't strike me as funny, exactly. Most are just along the lines of "nothing special" or "why did I waste my time.”
I did appreciate a few, though:
Yosemite: "Trees block view and there are too many grey rocks"
Assateague Island: "Horse poop on the beach"
Hawai'i Volcanoes: "Didn't even get to touch lava"
Arches National Park: "Looks nothing like the license plate"
Bryce Canyon: "Too orange, too spiky"
:-)
I really wanted more LOL moments and found the reviews from unimpressed visitors rather a let down, personally. Most if it was just very general comments, nothing too witty about the individual park. For Haleakala, "pretty average experience" says the reviewer. For Rock Creek Park, "not impressed" says the reviewer. Of course, I can marvel at how anyone could feel unmoved by seeing these parks, but the comments didn't strike me as funny, exactly. Most are just along the lines of "nothing special" or "why did I waste my time.”
I did appreciate a few, though:
Yosemite: "Trees block view and there are too many grey rocks"
Assateague Island: "Horse poop on the beach"
Hawai'i Volcanoes: "Didn't even get to touch lava"
Arches National Park: "Looks nothing like the license plate"
Bryce Canyon: "Too orange, too spiky"
:-)
July 14, 2021
As a fan of the Instagram page, I was so excited to get my hands on this book. The illustrations are beautiful, the reviews funny, and I loved how the author made sure to include information about how the lands were sacred to native populations. Overall a great read, I’m glad I bought this as a coffee table book and can flip through it whenever I want!
November 18, 2022
I purchased this thinking that I would be getting a list of other peoples' strange reviews of our national parks. There are only a few of them in here.
This book is mostly brief stories of the author's visits to many of our nation's national parks. Somewhat enjoyable, but wait until Amazon lowers the price to buy it.
This book is mostly brief stories of the author's visits to many of our nation's national parks. Somewhat enjoyable, but wait until Amazon lowers the price to buy it.
January 8, 2022
Instagram posts printed into a coffee table book. National parks are too breathtaking to be reduced to silhouettes and simple lines, and reading the full 1-star reviews on Google Maps or Trip Advisor might have been more amusing than reiterating how you can hike, camp, and see the stars at just about every national park. And now I sound like one of the author's unimpressed critics - meh.
December 28, 2021
Fun silliness with a bit of education. Super clever of Amber Share to find these reviews and pair them with good info about these parks.
August 12, 2021
Sonia recommends this humorous look at negative reviews of our national parks. Check our catalog: https://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore...
November 17, 2021
I've seen the "bad reviews of parks" lists on-line. Was under the impression this would be a larger collection of those (which are hilarious). It isn't. She pulls one sentence from a bad review and then provides a mediocre description of each NPS site - coupled with her own artwork (which may be the best part of the book).
So it isn't really funny and it isn't really a guide to parks. So I pretty much missed the point. if you're interested in funny - just google something like "bad national park reviews." If you're interested in visiting national parks, get a book (or visit the NPS website for each park) specific to national park tourism.
Took me less than an hour to get through this cover to cover (as a point of reference, I've visited approximately 75% of the national parks).
So it isn't really funny and it isn't really a guide to parks. So I pretty much missed the point. if you're interested in funny - just google something like "bad national park reviews." If you're interested in visiting national parks, get a book (or visit the NPS website for each park) specific to national park tourism.
Took me less than an hour to get through this cover to cover (as a point of reference, I've visited approximately 75% of the national parks).
October 4, 2021
I thought that (based on the book description) that it would be full of the funny, clueless, ridiculous comments about the National parks. Be aware that there is one illustrated funny comment, followed by a description of the park. Maybe one other anecdote per park. You might have more fun browsing Yelp reviews for more original humorous comments. If you want a guidebook with what to expect, this book is for you. Humor? A little bit.
February 5, 2022
People come from all over the world to visit America's national parks. Most leave awed and amazed. Some, however, leave one-star reviews of these wonders. Amber Share has collected the most astonishing one-star reviews and composed a graphic for each park featuring a quote from the review and set the graphic aside the awesome facts about each park. It makes for a humorous read.
Yosemite National Park: "Trees block view and there are too many gray rocks."
Oh my.
My favorite has to be the review for Hawa'i Volcanoes National Park: "Didn't even get to touch lava."
Yosemite National Park: "Trees block view and there are too many gray rocks."
Oh my.
My favorite has to be the review for Hawa'i Volcanoes National Park: "Didn't even get to touch lava."
April 12, 2022
Beautifully illustrated, hand-lettered art depicting national parks—but with excerpts from actual one-star reviews woven in.
The Grand Canyon: "A hole. A very, very large hole."
Yellowstone: "Save yourself some money and boil water at home."
Arches National Park: "Looks nothing like the license plate."
Bryce Canyon: "Too orange, too spiky."
My personal favorite national park, Mammoth Cave in Kentucky: "Cold, dark, damp, and stinky."
The accompanying text is fairly general, but the art is so delightful. It turns out some people get really mad when they go to the wilderness and find out there's no Wi-Fi.
The Grand Canyon: "A hole. A very, very large hole."
Yellowstone: "Save yourself some money and boil water at home."
Arches National Park: "Looks nothing like the license plate."
Bryce Canyon: "Too orange, too spiky."
My personal favorite national park, Mammoth Cave in Kentucky: "Cold, dark, damp, and stinky."
The accompanying text is fairly general, but the art is so delightful. It turns out some people get really mad when they go to the wilderness and find out there's no Wi-Fi.
June 8, 2024
Absolutely loved the idea and the drawings. I wish she had a kids edition, and an adults addition because I felt like it was a weird mix of the two. I would have enjoyed more details about the park, the history/culture, geology (for the adults version) instead of more information about what activities you can do in the park, because you can hike in just about all of the parks
January 21, 2022
The artwork is beautiful and the writing concise. The descriptions give a few facts, a bit of history, maybe some advice for visiting. Really just perfect!
December 1, 2021
This one was so much fun! Amazing people go visit these parks and find them boring, dull, and comment on not being able to see enough wildlife. Makes me want to visit every National Park across the country! Maybe some day, we'll see :-)
December 3, 2021
Anyone who loves our National parks will be impressed by this book that juxtapositions pithy and useful facts about each location as well as beautiful illustrations against ridiculous and often hysterical one star reviews such as someone who complained that Carlsbad Caverns National Park has poor lighting or the person who wrote that Arches National Park looks nothing like the license plate!
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