coffeeneur 's review for:

America the Beautiful? by Blythe Roberson

3.5

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This book reads like a story divided into two distinct sections - 1. the road trip where Roberson tried to be funny and tell us about her millennial-ness and 2. The road trip where Roberson has serious takeaways about privilege, driving and its contributing to the climate crisis, the erosion of our natural lands, capitalism's destructive nature, and climate change depression. I did not share Roberson's sense of humor and at times it felt forced, but I liked the endeavor/road trip the writer undertook. I like that Roberson structured her visits around National Parks and the Junior Ranger booklets, and she did not need to tell me that she used this to give her visits and trip structure. At times the book felt all over the place with musings, but the story gets much tighter and more to my liking in the later sections. I like her bottom line takeaways. Gotta admit that I found the audiobook irritating - the jolting between serious and self-effacing and "funny" commentary - and I wondered whether a different narrator might have changed that experience for me. Not sure.