“If you liked White Lotus…watch for The Last Resort…Stodola’s sobering investigation into the beach resort economy leaps from Thailand to Cap d’Antibes to Senegal, looking at why these manufactured environments became the vacation ideal and how climate change threatens them all.” –New York Times

“Here’s a beach read that will make you think. Stodola explores the fascinating history of how beaches became our dream destinations.” –Washington Post

“Beachgoers everywhere need to read this gripping account about the dark side of paradise…After reading The Last Resort, you’ll never look at an all-inclusive vacation quite the same way.” –Esquire

“Delving into the histories of more than twenty beachfront locales, from the Jersey shore to Indonesia, this chronicle of corrosive tourism describes a pattern of overdevelopment that, in our current ecological moment, “implies an end to the beach vacation as we know it.” –The New Yorker

“[A]n illuminating and troubling study of global seaside tourism…Stodola takes an anthropological blowtorch to the ‘sanitized bubbles’ of beach tourism.” –The Globe and Mail

“[A] sharp and exhaustive examination of the history and pitfalls of luxury beach resorts all over the world.” –The Atlantic

“A thorough and appropriately alarming analysis of how we made paradise and how it might be saved.” –Kirkus Reviews

“What could possibly be a better beach read than an investigative deep dive into the dark underbelly of the beachside resort business? With expert precision, Stodola weaves together travel notes, climate journalism, and scathing critiques of capitalism into a work cultural history exploring why we all flock to the beach in the first place.” –Harper’s Bazaar

“Beaches are ‘a paradise both threatening and threatened,’ according to this thought-provoking survey…Stodola travels the globe to highlight how coastal towns that largely depend on tourism are changing due to climate change and have become hotbeds of social inequality…The result is a fascinating look at the dangers of climate change.” –Publisher’s Weekly

“Sarah Stodola’s new book cracks open ideas of paradise and the complicated histories of coastal travel.” –Southern Living

“There’s a lot more to reading by the beach or the pool than you realize, as revealed in this history and exploration of beach resort culture—all the more critical as the travel industry is grappling with how to not only recover and thrive post-pandemic, but to also curtail its worst offenses as we approach a climate reckoning.” –Fortune

“Stodola details both the disastrous effects of overdevelopment on multiple beachfront sites as well as hopeful instances of conservation, charting the steps needed to curtail the devastating consequences of unchecked development. . . . Avid travelers and environmentally conscious readers alike will appreciate this treatment.”  -Booklist