Rating: 
Summary: Too much effort- or not enough?
Review: While parts of this book were certainly entertaining, it was very disjointed, and the author's efforts at descriptive writing went way overboard. The chapter called COYOTES was painful to read, in that is was 'all over the place' and had NO flow. I see this writer has potential, but she certainly has not reached that point yet. I would not recommend this book-- unless you would like to practice your editorial skills. If you can forgive the author's lack of skills, you might enjoy it. But, isn't reading supposed to be about escaping, not racking your brain to find a flow?
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: This is a terrific book! I read it right after it was published and have recently read it again enjoying it even more the second time. It appears very obvious that the previous glut of "one star" ratings are actually the work of one single individual posing as many. Notice that the reviews are basically the same and they are all from "a reader in..." (fill in the blank), usually from somewhere in New York. Too, they were all written within days and weeks of each other. Certainly, a person is entitled to his/her opinion but to pull a stunt like that shows a sick immaturity and apparent jealousy. It makes me both mad and sad to see this. I want to say, "Grow up already, okay!?" I thoroughly enjoy the writing of Jo Ann Beard and cannot wait for more from her. Keep up the great work!
Rating: 
Summary: funny and heartbreaking
Review: The essays in this book are amazing--they are funny, laugh out loud funny--and also make you cry in a deep and heartfelt way. Beard is so honest, that I really related to her, and her style of writing almost mimicks the thought process--it flits back and forth in time and we see and feel every thought. Cousins and the Fourth State of Matter are the best essays in this collection. Not every essay is right on, but enough are to make this worth the purchase. I definitely look forward to Beard's future publications.
Rating:
Summary: Beard's first
Review: Jo Ann Beard's Boys of My Youth is a wonderful journey through the author's turbulent and hilarious childhood- it slows down occasionally, but the presentation is so fresh and witty that it's easy to overlook the minor weaknesses. The true gem of the book is "The Fourth State of Matter", a New Yorker essay about the murders of her colleagues in the Iowa Department of Physics in 1991. All in all, a great summer read, and an author to look out for.
Rating: 
Summary: Tiresome, Dull, Sloppy
Review: This is simply not good writing.
Rating:
Summary: You have got to be kidding
Review: Has the "we all have stories to tell" phenomenon in America really got as frim a grip around the throat of literature? Say it ain't so. I'm looking over these reviews and it seems like they all refer primarily to the "beautiful", "touching", "stories" this writer tells about girlhood and growing up and feeling out of place. Does anyone one have anything to say about its artistic merits? I dind't think so. That's because it has none.
Rating:
Summary: Sorry, Sensationalism Doesn't Cut It
Review: I usually don't give such low star ratings to books--in fact this is the lowest I've given--but I'm so in awe of the sentimentality in this book with its quirkiness posing as art that I simply need to express my shock that this would be considered great reading. This may sound harsh, but maybe for a bunch of lonely middle-aged women the quaint little anecdotes in this book would seem comforting--the way group therapy feel "comforting" perhaps--but I can't suggest this as true literature, however snobby that sounds.
Rating:
Summary: Pure joy
Review: No,I'm sorry. There's sap on this page, but it ain't in the book. The book is superb: the writing is utterly wonderful, and every single essay is mesmerizing. It's a sheer and absolute delight.
Rating:
Summary: WHEN IS THIS GOING TO END?
Review: It is impossible for me to imagine how this book got published. It seems the only worthwhile essay in it is the essay that sold the book, the New Yorker's "Fouth State of Matter." It's a shame that so good a writer (read that essay and you WILL fall in love) would allow herself to ride on the laurels of that one essay, and pass off the rest of the book as even worthy to be read (let alone be published). This isn't a horrible book, but it's a book that makes me hope Beard continues writing so that we might get a glimpse of her obviously hidden talents.
Rating:
Summary: memoir at its peak of slop
Review: no, i'm sorry. i can't imagine that readers are responding to the literary merits of this book rather than merely its oh woe is me whines. this is an amazingly poorly written book worth no more than these three sentences.
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