“Engrossing and vital, rich and funny and wise . . . Angelou writes like a song, and like the truth.”
–The New York Times Book Review
“A curiously heartening story in which decency, honor, truth, love do exist, imperfectly, fractionally and flickeringly, not in some Platonic realm of the ideal, but in the flawed lives of real men and women.”
–The Washington Post
“The book is a gem. It presents a descriptive picture of the texture of the lives and times of many black people in the late forties before the dawn of civil rights. It is so insightful and funny-sad, you catch yourself remembering your own young adulthood.”
–Chicago Tribune
“Rich, engaging . . . Angelou tells the story of this dauntless, reckless, foolish girl with few flourishes; it doesn’t need them.”
–The New Yorker
