"Beard is companionable, casual, serious about the things that matter without ever being self-serious, sharp without being cruel, compassionate without going soft. She accomplishes something with the personal essay that's similar to what Lee Smith or Jill McCorkle do in their fiction. Reading 'The Boys of My Youth' is like going to a party or a barbecue where you hardly know a soul and winding up spending the entire time having a great conversation with someone you just met." "Reading Jo Ann Beard's prose feels as comfortable as falling into step beside an old, intimate friend. She's the sort of writer whose charm lies in the voice...with which she relates the events of a mostly ordinary life....Beard remembers (or imagines) her childhood self with an uncanny lucidity that startles..."