A twenty-eight year old television comedy writer decides to quit her job, borrow her step-father' s Prius, and drive across America and free-camp to visit national parts in the summer when the temperatures soar and the parks are crowded. Blythe Roberson provides a thoughtful look at the oxymoronic status of the parks in 2019 and today: the parks are meant to preserve the land, but they are so overcrowded with cars, recreational vehicles, and visitors. One note: Roberson mentions a previous trip to Everglades National Park when she feared falling into the jaws of a manatee while on an airboat ride--she must have meant alligator. Overall, America the Beautiful? provides glimpses of the park histories and one young woman's thoughts on their beauty and possible demise.

A fun travel memoir, especially for fans of the National Parks! Roberson's writing was witty but also very authentic about what she faced traveling alone (ie. "that she would be murdered"). I have a new appreciation for the National Parks and a few more to add to my list.

I’m split on how I feel about this book. I enjoys the parts of the book where the author wrote about the national parks — both her experience in them and their history. However I did not enjoy the many tangents in between.

Tired of her day job (and travel books written by privileged, white men) Blythe takes off in a borrowed Prius for a road trip across the U.S. In search of inspiration and adventure, she travels from the Midwest to the Pacific coast and down to the Southwest, meeting up with several friends along the way.

America the Beautiful features musings on ecotourism, conservation, freedom, climate change, and even racial and financial inequities. I really enjoyed following along on Blythe’s adventures, learning from her valuable insight as a female solo traveler about what safety looks like for young women traveling alone. I also very much enjoyed learning about the (often overlooked) disparities between travel as a white person versus someone of color.

Bigger explorers will definitely get a lot out of this book—like valuable life lessons about racial inequities, safety 101, and how to appreciate the rich (though sometimes unsettling) history America has to offer. Afterwards, you’ll be ready to hit the open road, feel the wind on your face, and uncover something new to love about this land we call home.

I’m a seasoned armchair traveler and have gone on many a road trip from the comfort of my couch. However this is the first time it’s been with a solo female traveler focused on getting junior ranger badges.

I really enjoyed spending the time on this trip but would say to expect more musings on the national parks, climate change and the ways we are (or are not) caring for the land than travel hijinks. This was a super fast read and would be a good listen if you are also on any road trips this summer!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance reading copy.

There's no doubt about it: our National Parks are having a moment. As I started to read Blythe Roberson's Book, America the Beautiful?, I couldn't help but be a little bit envious. Embarking on a trip to visit as many of our National Parks as possible sounded like fun! Living out of her car for months? Showering occasionally? Eating mostly snack foods? Yeah, no thanks. But I knew that while reading I would find myself longing to visit these beautiful places. What I didn't expect was everything I would be challenged to think about and consider about the history and the future of these protected places.

Questions like: What does it mean that so much of the national park's histories favor the European colonizer histories? How do I feel about the fact that we escape to the national parks ideally to get away from capitalism, but it is the capitalism that makes our parks possible. And don't forget about the Native land robbery and the threats of climate change and the fact that species of plants and animals that are dying away. How can I begin to reconcile it all? Roberson puts it plainly: these parks, their histories and their beauty, expose all that is good and bad about our country.

I appreciated Roberson's humor and how she exposed so many truths without getting too lost in the weeds. Yes, some of the points she makes are pretty depressing, but following her on her quest to earn a Junior Ranger bade from every park she visited made for a nice balance. Her descriptions made me want to visit these places, sure, but more importantly made me want to learn more about the history surrounding them. I think anyone who has visited or wants to visit any of our national parks will enjoy this book.

Thank you to Harper Collins and the author for an advanced copy.

America the Beautiful? Is like hearing about an epic road trip from a witty best friend. The author details her solo road trip across the United States where she stops at 30 something national parks to hike, take in the scenery, amd earn a junior ranger badge. Along the way she had much time for introspection and fills the reader in on her enlightening thoughts. This may sound serious- and she certainly ponders some serious topics (climate change, the forceful displacement of Indigenous Peoples, border control, and current politics)- but the author skillfully introduces these topics and shares her deep musings with a comedic flair. This book left me wanting to visit more National parks myself, learn more about their history, and in general commune with the nature in my own backyard. The author emphasizes the importance of friendships and relationships and reading her work also made me want to cultivate the relationships in my own life.

Read this one if you've ever had the itch to solo travel, do a cross country road trip, or visit national parks. Do not read this if you sway conservative in your politics.

I found this book through the Boston Globe and Yeah for them. It was one of those books that could be almost everything to everyone. Ms. Roberson actually did what many of us dream of--running away taking a road trip to appreciate the USA, and finding yourself, Her sense of humor is never far from the surface and sometimes made me laugh out loud and quote the book to my husband. She highlighted several parks I had never heard of and wrote about the good, the bad, and the ugly of all of them. I have a friend who does the Junior Ranger books, so I will definitely be recommending America the Beautiful to her. My only complaint--and hopefully it will give the author an idea for a sequel is to tour and write about the parks in the eastern states!

This book was wonderful! Put it in your backpack on your adventure this summer and allow it to both inspire you and view our National Parks through a different lens. In this memoir, Blythe quits her job and free camps her way around the United States completing Junior Ranger booklets and contemplating the way we live life today. This is travel writing at its finest, but elevated to include discussions on travel as a solo woman, who land belongs to, and how white men take responsibility for everything we love by stealing things and then giving them to the public as if treating it as a gift rather than a stolen artifact.

This is a book that I was grateful to have access to ahead of time through Netgalley, but that I will be buying and sharing with everyone. I adored this book! Next level travel writing!

Thanks, but this was just not the book for me. I found the author to be a rather spoiled, entitled slacker. Just could not relate to her. I guess I'm not the target audience. I'm not going to leave any review on any other site so as not to prejudice anyone against the author.

This is a travelogue but also a commentary on colonialism, feminism, consumption, climate change. While tackling so many topics deftly, the book weaves together the author's hilarious modern (and humorous) take on a cross country road trip to gather as many junior ranger badges as she can (who doesn't love vacation homework?) that had me laughing on one page and then highlighting and researching a new topic on the next.

There are some sections that felt a bit repetitive (the whys and morality of the trip), but the whole book is told so candidly and authentically that I think this is more a reflection of the author's struggle to resolve answers to impossible questions.

There is a lot to talk about and unpack about this book and I think it is a great fit for any book clubs or discussion groups looking for a travel book that will make you laugh, give you a travel bug, and also make you think and question.

This book is a thoughtful exploration of the human contributions to climate change, travel as identity marker, American history and some of the harder-to-reconcile portions of American history and Parks Service history.... masquerading as a fun, frivolous tale of Blythe Roberson's solo road trip to some of the nation's many national parks. Having taken my own solo road trips to several national parks (and having grown up very close to three of the parks she visits in the Pacific Northwest), I really loved reading the thoughts of someone else who's visited these places while struggling a bit to reconcile their own individual impact on the landscape amid the hordes of Instagram-inspired visitors, and thinking deeply about what government-driven land conservation really means in a colonized place like the United States. I also, quite frankly, got a bit of the travel bug back reading about some of the places she visited that I haven't been to yet myself. Thoroughly enjoyable, and I'm looking forward to release day so I can buy a copy for my personal shelves. Well done, Blythe Roberson! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this review copy.

As a woman who has spent months on a solo road trip to the national parks, this book was perfect for me. The use of millennial slang may not be for everyone but it made me laugh. I like how the author added a lot of context to the broader stories of parks. She thought through a lot of issues and didn't propose any solutions which was a refreshing change of pace. I like books that make me think but don't tell me what to think.