u/Comprehensive-Fun47

I don't read as many non-fiction books as fiction books because I don't always find them as engaging, but this book I did find engaging the whole way through.

It's a book about American history, which is a subject that could fill volumes, but fortunately this book doesn't try to do too much at once. It's told from the perspective of the author, Beverly Gage, a historian, as she goes on multiple road trips around the country to historic sites.

She goes to different states all around the country, but not every state. She goes to a few presidential birthplace and libraries, but not every presidential birthplace and library. She goes to several Civil Rights landmarks, but not every Civil Rights landmark. You get the idea. She goes to teeny underfunded house museums and she also goes to Disneyland. It all comes together to tell the story of our country without feeling overwhelming.

One of the things I found most interesting was how she explored what aspects of history these historical sites highlight and what they gloss over and how that has changed over time and is still changing. For example, how does Colonial Williamsburg address slavery or fail to address slavery and when things may have changed.

I also enjoyed how she allows certain places to be many things at once. There's not always a clean, black and white answer. Some places are contradictions and people contain multitudes.

In addition to the historical information, she sprinkles in some details about her trips — which ones she brought her son along for, which ones she went with her fiance on, which ones got derailed by unexpected car trouble or illnesses. There's some of that personal stuff, but not too much of it, which I think was a fine line to walk that she walked well. She never makes herself the story, but instead brings us along to see these locations through her eyes.

I really enjoyed it because it's well-written and contains a lot of great knowledge and insight into these moments in American history that are still affecting us today. She does a great job framing the legacy of certain figures or events on modern culture without doing it with too much bias. She relates the good and the bad, the highs and lows, and does it in a way that feels like a great starting place to dig even deeper into some of the topics she covers in the book.

It definitely made me want to go on a history-focused road trip. I think the audiobook would be great company on long road trip too!

I don't remember what made me want to read this book, but I'm really glad I did. I put it on hold however many weeks or months ago and when it came up, I simply started reading, without reminding myself what it was about first.

It's about a woman in her 30s who works as an adjunct professor. If you don't know what that is, the book will explain it to you, and you will be shocked and dismayed that such a low-paid, high-effort position could exist. I remember having adjunct professors and they were not shy about telling us what a sham it is.

Anyway, life is not going good for Sam. She's struggling financially, hustling non-stop in pursuit of a stable job, and she's really unsure of her own identity, sexual and otherwise.

She winds up working at the same college as her grad school advisor, with whom she had an inappropriate relationship and she hasn't seen in years. It's not the typical teacher- student relationship kind of story. You do not have to worry about it feeling like well-trodden ground. Their history is all revealed bit by bit as the present-day story moves forward.

In many ways, Sam can't catch a break. I found her highly relatable. I'm pretty averse to feeling preached to in the books I read (and other media) and even though there are a lot of topics in this book that might feel preachy — how capitalism is destroying everything, the nuances of the Me Too movement, etc — it really worked for me because I enjoyed the voice of the character/the author. YMMV, though.

I never wanted to put this book down while I was reading it, but I forced myself to. There was something I thought I figured out early that I became very eager to see if it would be revealed or not, but that's not the only thing that kept me going. The book feels very real. The arguments, the problems, the main character telling-it-like it is, the meta aspect, the dark humor, the messiness. The book feels like you have a friend with a smart, wry sense of humor telling you about all the bullshit in the world and you just can't believe it, but you're also very sucked in by the story.

If any of that sounds good to you, I highly recommend it.

Sidenote: The audiobook narrator was really good. Really good. Except the few words she mispronounced, which irked me because her performance was otherwise so good.

Warning: The book quotes and discusses existing literature a fair bit because Sam is a literature professor. If you care about spoilers, about 2/3 of the way through, the entire plot of Wuthering Heights is explained. Easy enough to skip if you prefer.