There are not many perfect books out there but this is one.

These essays knocked my socks off. "The Fourth State of Matter" is particularly memorable.

I did enjoy this book..but it seemed to take an effort to make it through some parts. Some of the stories in it just could not hold my attention and others I could not put down. I enjoyed reading about her family and growing up years.

The chapter on the shooting was very good. I had to look it up. I sort of remember when it happened but hearing about it from someone who had actually lived it put it in more personal terms. I like how she related it to us in terms of her life and not just stating that, yes, she worked there and knew the people, this is what happened. Hearing it told from her point of view...and knowing she should have been there also...made it seem more shocking somehow.

I also thought the story on her drive back from Florida and the man following her was very good. It had me scared for her...even though I knew she obviously made it through...I could picture it as if I were there in the car as it was happening.

All in all it was a good book. I had read "In Zanesville" first and I really enjoyed that book. I didn't like this one quite as much, but then, it was a different style. Although Zanesville wasn't an autobiographical book, I could see that some of the characters in that book were very similar to her real life family. I had the feeling while reading that, that Jo was the narrator, even though her name was never formally mentioned. Having now read "Boys" I can see that I was correct in that assumption.

Recently read a piece on Beard's new novel, in which she was praised extravagantly for this set of memoiric essays (sorry, I can't use the new phrase "creative nonfiction"). Just read the first three pieces, and, damn, she's a goodun. She's got Harper Lee's eye and memory, updated.

Awesome collection of essays. Love the humor and grit and up-close scenes that, as will all good nonfiction, make me feel as though I'm in good company. I can't believe it took me so long to find this book. I need to find more like it... I'm facing a shortage of good essay collections.

I was a little unsure at first but after reading the first few essays I began to appreciate what she was doing. Extremely well written. If I hadn’t been reading a library copy I would underlined and highlighted a lot.

Another book I want to like, but I had trouble getting into it. The prose is widely vivid, poetic, but I felt like most of these essays didn’t delve past that. Beautiful language but with very little to no plot to motivate me to keep reading. Some of these are stunners of course like 4th State of Matter, but half felt too much like fluff. I’ll have to revisit this book in the future and see if I feel differently about it