Everyone has a critic, even Mother Nature. ‘Subpar Parks’ brings together 1-star reviews
The National Park System contains 85 million acres of land across the country with some of the world’s deepest lakes and biggest volcanoes as well as dunes, arches, mountains, forests and canyons.
And they’re all at a scale that seems designed by Mother Nature to impress even the most unimpressed among us. But as great as they are, even the national parks get bad Yelp reviews.
That’s what fascinated Amber Share, a graphic artist living in Raleigh who has been illustrating parks and their bad 1-star reviews — in the style of posters you might find at a souvenir shop — since 2019 on her Instagram Subpar Parks.
“I got on Reddit one day, and someone had posted screenshots of a couple of reviews they’d found on the National Parks subreddit. It just clicked,” Share said.
Published on July 13 by Plume, “Subpar Parks: America’s Most Extraordinary National Parks and Their Least Impressed Visitors” compiles some of her favorite illustrations. In its first week of publication, her book was fourth on The New York Times Best-Seller list for Advice, How-to and Miscellaneous books.
Share’s bold and colorful designs contrast with some of the most beautiful views in the world with reviews like “Mountains are not tall enough,” and “Didn’t even get to touch the lava.” The book also includes pages of helpful facts and anecdotes from park rangers.
Share spoke with The News & Observer to discuss her book, her favorite park and why some people just don’t seem to think Mother Nature is all that. The conversation has been lightly edited.
Q: You mention in your book that you visited the national parks as a child with your family, what role did they play for you?
Share: My parents took us, my two siblings and I, to a lot of parks wherever we lived or were vacationing through. We did a lot of road trips, since we were in the military, to visit our extended family. To me, parks were always an integral part of our family time together. Whether it was going to Mammoth Cave or, when we lived in Hawaii, going to Haleakala, they’ve always kind of been there, in my mind, as something you visit recreationally.
Q: You’re a graphic designer and an artist. How did you decide that was the career for you, and how did you get there?
Share: My mom is very artistic. She has always been doing all kinds of crafts and painting and drawing. So I was exposed to all that really at a young age, and I always kind of wanted to be an artist. I think, in kindergarten, when we had to fill out what we wanted to do, I definitely said I wanted to be an artist. It’s always been something I’ve been passionate about doing.
I didn’t necessarily see a path to that when I started to think about my career, so I went and studied more advertising and marketing in college with graphic design. Then, when I was working professionally, I always sort of gravitated more and more towards the illustration and art side of that world.
Q: When did you first discover National Parks had bad Yelp reviews?
Share: I knew I wanted to draw all the parks as kind of like a fun, capsule, illustration project for myself to do on the side. I was looking for what I could do to make it a little more unique, just because there are so many cool posters out there already.
Q: What was the first bad review that you illustrated?
Share: It was Arches Park, and the review was that, “It was nothing like the license plate.”
Q: What’s the funniest review that you’ve found so far?
Share: That’s so hard, because they’re all funny for really different reasons. But I think my favorite ones are the ones where they’re reviewing exactly what the park is known for — like it’s never pretended to be anything else. So, I’ve always liked the Joshua Tree one: “There’s nothing really to do there, but walk around the desert.”
Q: Could you describe your process from searching for the reviews to illustrating them? How do you narrow down the reviews that you’re going to use?
Share: For the reviews, I pretty much go on Google Reviews, TripAdvisor and Yelp, and I’m mainly looking for reviews that criticize the actually scenery and nature, just because I think that’s what makes it funny — the audacity of criticizing Mother Nature.
Once I find a few that seem like good contenders, I just start looking at pictures of the parks, whether I have photos from my time there, or just looking for the iconic views. Oftentimes, the scenery that I land on informs the review that I use, just because some of them are funnier juxtaposed together than others.
Then I just start with a rough sketch, and layer in color and texture to achieve the sort of depth and detail that is my style.
Q: How did you come to decide to make a book out of all of these different posters?
Share: People kept telling me that I should turn them into a book, and I didn’t really know how to even approach that. But I wound up talking to some literary agents and signing with Aevitas Creative Management, they helped me put together this amazing proposal that my publisher, Plume, ended up going for.
I knew I wanted it to be more than just the Instagram feed and really give people information about the parks, and I ended up talking to a bunch of park rangers to get some anecdotes and tips from them. I really wanted it to be a mixture of the funny, snarky tone that the Instagram feed has, but also have an educational aspect as well.
Q: What has been the most difficult part about bringing the book together and illustrating the different parks?
Share: Not knowing what specifically to talk about for each park. Every park can have its own entire own book about all the things there are to do and see and know about that place. Especially because some of them are so big and their history goes so far back. That has been the hardest part.
I mean, trying to pull just the highlights to fit on a page or two in the book, I’ve had to make some tough cuts about what would and wouldn’t be included.
Q: What’s your favorite park that you’ve visited?
Share: I have to with the Grand Canyon, always.
Q: Which park have you not seen, but would really really like to see?
Share: I think I’m going to have to say the Alaska parks collectively, just because I always though Alaska was not for me because I don’t do well with cold weather, and even in the summer it doesn’t get that warm there. After doing all the research and illustrating all of them, it’s just very clear to me that I definitely need to make the time and go.
Q: With the pandemic, national parks and the outdoors have seen a huge surge in popularity. What do you enjoy most about visiting these parks and being outdoors?
Share: For me it’s sort of ironic that that’s happening. It’s about getting a ton of time by myself out in nature, which is increasingly difficult to find in these parks, but well worth it.
Q: What’s the message you want to send to your readers through this book?
Share: I think there are several, but really that we have such a variety of beautiful places in this country to go visit, but they all require for you to be a little prepared and do some research, or you might wind up like one of the 1-star reviewers.
But also, everyone has critics, everyone gets negative feedback, even Mother Nature. If a national park can get a 1-star review, you definitely don’t have a chance of pleasing everybody. You might as well stop trying and caring about that.
This story was originally published July 16, 2021 at 12:30 PM with the headline "Everyone has a critic, even Mother Nature. ‘Subpar Parks’ brings together 1-star reviews."