One Star Wonders by Mike Lowery

Sometimes, you want to read a book, but not any specific book. You look at a bunch, and everything is not quite right. (As my family puts it, echoing the Berenstains: too beady too bumpy too leafy too lumpy.)

So you pick up something quick and light that you hope will be fun, to read something and get going again.

That's how I read One Star Wonders by Mike Lowery. I have no regrets.

In a previous era, it would sit next to a cash register in a thousand Borders across this great nation. It might be next to the cash-wrap in stores even now; I see it was published this year, so it's new enough that it might still be on promo. If you do happen to see it, while buying something else, pick it up and take a look - it might amuse you enough to grab it yourself.

(I read it digitally, from my library app, so I had a different experience.)

Lowery is an illustrator and author - I don't think he does "comics," exactly, but he's made a lot of illustrated books, for kids and old people, and he's got a detailed sketchbooky style with a lot of life and energy to it. He also travels a lot: looks like sometimes it's related to work, but mostly he seems to find ways to turn the travel he already wants to do into work. (Which is a great thing, in the old "pursue your passions" way.)

This book is an illustrated collection of quotes from reviews that Lowery has collected over the years. The quotes are by random people - you know, SoupLover9736 and DebbieFromScarsdale67 and 420Life6969; those kind of people - on various online review sites. The reviews are of famous landmarks and locations in the world: the Taj Mahal, the Acropolis, the Statue of Liberty, stuff like that.

And, as you may guess from the title, all of the reviews are dismissive.

Some of them are things you will have heard other places, such as this take on Venice: "You will remember the smell of raw sewage."

Some seem to miss the point, as on China's Tianzi Mountains: "Only awesome if you like scenery."

Lowery puts each quote on a single page, with a drawing of the place. Again, he has a cartoony, quick style, so they're all recognizable but fun and cartoony.

This is a short book, amusing and quickly read and quite frivolous in the best ways. What more can I say about it? I'm going to see what else Lowery has done for people my age, which is as good a recommendation I can make: I read this guy's silly frivolous book, and it made me look for more.