rara2018 's review for:

Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty

2.0

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My grandma gave this to me for my birthday, which was a sweet sentiment, but I just found the book incredibly dull. I feel HORRIBLE saying that about a "diary", but I just literally did not enjoy this at all. Some of the sentiments were sweet, but I take major umbrage with people who are inconsistent in their beliefs (according to me anyway). The writing was decent if excessively flowery. I will say, I am reading a book on writing nonfiction well for work and the amount of adjectives used here would've given Howard Zinn a conniption. I have also read TOO MUCH environmental (non)fiction in the past month to finish the CPL summer reading challenge, so that also probably hurt the book in my eyes. Dara seems like a very cool person, and I have major respect for him participating in activism at the level he has been as a teenager, but I just didn't care for the book in the slightest. As a side tangent—and probably an American perspective—but his thoughts about wilderness being "pure" is something that immediately raises my hackles.