Review by Booklist Review
Comedy writer and author Roberson (How to Date Men When You Hate Men, 2019) offers an American travel narrative with a humorous, feminist edge, chronicling a solo road trip in her stepdad's old black Prius. She wants to free camp on government land along the way. The universal response to this independent, optimistic plan? "You'll get murdered." Spoiler alert: she does not. She optimizes her route for visiting the most national parks, committing to earning a Junior Ranger badge at every park she visits, which gives her otherwise free-form road trip some structure. Her dogged badge quest involves new, sometimes awkward learning experiences that provoke some bemusement from park rangers and bystanders alike. Charms of the road include bougie breakfasts and unexpected "tofu-based amenities." Trials: few showers and "atrocity-level" bathrooms. Beauty in the form of artists' palette colors, lofty sand dunes, and ghost town hospitality wins the day. Readers riding shotgun will relish this long, strange trip while enjoying Roberson's rants, realizations, and discoveries of wonder.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Comedy writer Roberson (How to Date Men When You Hate Men) quit her Late Show with Stephen Colbert job to visit national parks and--despite naysayers insisting she was "going to get murdered"--lived to tell the tale in this wobbly seriocomic travelogue. Taking her "Great American Road Trip" in the spring and summer of 2019, 30-something Roberson believed that "if I let myself be truly present, something alchemical might happen" to her generational malaise. She started at Lake Superior's Isle Royale, "the least visited national park in the contiguous United States," and awarded herself Junior Ranger badges along the rest of her odyssey, a gimmicky "organizing principle" that detracts from Roberson's more serious-minded considerations of global warming, the displacement of indigenous peoples, and how influencers cause overcrowding at national parks. Side trips to Los Angeles ("to take meetings") and art mecca Marfa, Tex., land less like unplugging and more like "I-hang-with-the-cool-kids" striving, and Roberson overall struggles to mold her experiences into a coherent narrative. She's undoubtedly funny and great on a line level, but jokes alone don't save this meandering memoir. Agent: Dana Murphy, the Book Group. (Apr.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A Brooklyn-based humor writer and comedian travels the U.S. seeking freedom and adventure. In her latest book, Roberson, author of How To Date Men When You Hate Men, recounts her trip across the country with the goal of writing "a female American travel narrative" in the vein of those written by Jack Kerouac. "My book," she writes, "would answer the question: what if Bill Bryson got his period?" Despite safety warnings from her family and friends, Roberson quit her job and ventured out in a borrowed Toyota Prius, traveling predominately west across the U.S., hitting popular national parks along the way. Though she set out to chronicle the next Great American Road Trip, "acquiring Junior Ranger badges was the organizing principle of my trip." At each destination, Roberson gives brief, occasionally intriguing details about the history and wildlife of the area, but she seems more content completing the activities in the Junior Ranger booklet than deeply experiencing each region. Most of her stops involved a short hike, where she wanders the landscape and flirts with park rangers, before dashing off to her next location. Throughout the narrative, Roberson shares information she learned regarding the effects of climate change and offers well-intentioned yet overly familiar, surface-level critical discussions of the European genocide of Indigenous peoples in North America. Further, she questions the morality of visiting national parks, including the part she is playing. Though she contends that one should not feel guilty for enjoying the national park system, "we should work toward returning control of the parks to Native Americans." While many of her political and environmental points have validity, few of them are novel. The author's goal of writing a memorable female American travel narrative is commendable, but she tries to accomplish too much, skating across numerous themes and tones, resulting in a book that fails to leave a lasting impression. An admirable work that falls short of its goal. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
