Amber Share Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Amber Share
Amber Share is a graphic designer and illustrator based in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated in 2010 with a degree in advertising and a minor in art from the University of Nebraska.

As an avid backpacker and hiker, she spends much of her time in state, local, and national parks. Which served as the inspiration for her “Subpar Parks” series.

Amber has always loved design and spent a lot more of her time in school doodling in the margins than actually getting her homework done. This grew into a deep love of typography, and in certain circles, is well known for her font identification skills. With her advertising and graphic design degrees and her extensive training in hand lettering and calligraphy, she’s worked with small and big businesses to make their visions come to life.

After spending several years as a professional graphic designer working on illustration and hand lettering on the side, she left her job in graphic design in order to pursue illustration on a full time basis.

Amber started out just craving a creative project of her own, since as a professional designer, you just don’t get to draw. She wanted a side project that would be a creative outlet for her and pertained to her interest. It got her thinking about all of those national parks she had visited over her lifetime and began sketching them out on her iPad.

Pretty soon, she had retro illustrations of places like Joshua Tree National Park’s desert landscape and the Grand Canyon’s rocky ochre horizon. However she wanted to include text on her illustrations, something that would identify them, something other than just the park name. She wanted something that was more unique than that.

Amber started out with the goal of drawing all of the parks, figuring all of these different landscapes would help her challenge herself. However then she found this Reddit thread that listed all kinds of one-star reviews. Like one for Arches National Park which said it wasn’t anything like the license plate!

Since she just thought the review was so strange and funny, she immediately wanted to find a way to illustrate it, feeling it was too good not to do anything with. So she posted that one on Instagram in early December of 2019. She was visiting her parents during Thanksgiving that year and finishing up the first few: Joshua Tree, Arches, Grand Canyon, and the Tetons.

Amber enjoys making work which celebrates the outdoors, an active lifestyle, and the ups and downs of creative entrepreneurship. When she isn’t creating for clients, she also tends to her 42 houseplants, or fixing her house up. Or working on her passion projects, like “Subpar Parks” which became a Bestseller in 2021 and was a finalist in the Goodreads Choice Awards for Humor book of the year.

She doesn’t claim to be from any one place. Being the daughter of a Navy chief, Share and her family spent the majority of her childhood on the move. Share had lived in five different states and in Italy, by the time she had entered high school. Family trips took her all around the country.

While in Hawaii, she explored the lava-laced shores of the Ala Kahakai Trail. Then in Florida, she journeyed through the Everglades with alligator and manatee sightings. Taking a road trip across the southwestern United States brought her through Yellowstone National Park, Grand Canyon, and Zion National Park.

Parks like these, as well as the Badlands National Park in South Dakota, became her home. They were everlasting, timeless, and grounding experiences for her, and they solidify any vacation.

Each of these experiences have stuck with her ever since, etched in her soul and mind. Even while an adult living in Washington, DC, she’d go to Rock Creek Park just for a reprieve, or drive to Shenandoah. Anytime she wants a break in her life, she would end up in some park.

Amber’s work has been featured in Real Simple, the Boston Globe, O Magazine, the New York Times, Buzzfeed, Climbing.com, Atlas Obscura, the LA Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Outside.com, as well as others.

“Subpar Parks: America’s Most Extraordinary National Parks and Their Least Impressed Visitors” is a non-fiction book that was released in the year 2021. Based on the wildly popular Instagram account, this features both the greatest hits as well as brand new content, all of which celebrating the incredible variety and beauty of America’s national parks juxtaposed with the hilarious and clueless one-star reviews posted by its visitors.

Subpar parks, both on Instagram page and in this informative, humorous, and collectible book, combines two things which seem like they may not work well together yet harmonize perfectly. Amusing, informative text and beautiful illustrations which celebrate each national park paired with the one-star reviews that disappointed tourists have left online.

Millions of visitors every year enjoy Glacier National Park, however for one visitor, the place was Too cold for me! Another saw the mind-boggling vistas at Bryce Canyon as being Too spiky! Never mind that person that visited the thermal pools at Yellowstone National park and left thinking, “Save yourself some money, and boil some water at home.”

Featuring over 50 percent new material, the book is sure to include more insight and depth into the most popular parks, such as Yellowstone, Yosemite, Acadia National Parks, and the Grand Canyon. Tips and anecdotes from rangers, and a lot more about Amber Share’s personal connection and love for the outdoors.

Equal parts love and humor for the national parks and the great outdoors, it is a perfect gift for anybody that loves spending time outside as well as having a good read (and laugh) once they come inside.

Fans of this book found this to be beautifully illustrated, the one-star reviews are quite funny, and it is interesting to learn about the parks. This is a unique spin on the topic of American National Parks. Amber does a great job of including information about how these lands were sacred to the native populations.