There are always stereotypes to be stripped down, aren't there?

Rekdal's themes (race, how Americans are perceived overseas, how Americans perceive each other) make you think, but her writing won't make you struggle. Her essays, built around episodes of her life, are sad, funny, entertaining and insightful.

An excellent book. Highly recommended. I wish I could teach a course called "Race in America" just so I could get more people to read this book.

Ms. Rekdal's numerous observations are personal and touching. Many Americans have struggled with an identity crisis. I understand fully the crushing power of long and brutal silences mentioned in the text. I am so glad that Ms. Rekdal is not silent at all.

i am so happy to have stumbled upon this book. This author is so intelligent, observant, witty and creative. This book was charming and relatable. i laughed aloud as some of my own personal experiences were so similar, it was amazing. Rekdal is able to put into words feelings that i hadn't been able to describe. Even if one hasn't had cultural identity questions about him/herself this book is enjoyable and some sentences read almost like poetry. Her stories are very insightful and she captures the essence of how people think and react.

Rekdal's sentimentality in A Crash of Rhinos is almost as cloying as her sentimentality in The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee. I want to like the poems, because the author seems genuinely smart and insightful, but what music and power they have is drowned out by a pervasive self-consciousness.

these poems get under your skin. Quirky, witty, wise and moving, Rekdal's poems have both sweep and focus. In one poem, she deftly connects the planet Pluto with the underworld god with the Disney cartoon... while exploring the end of a relationship. These are poems informed with history and humor, poetry that's never ashamed to entertain. "Sex, like dinner," she reminds us, "has serious consequences."

This is a book of poems with a pulse. Page after page thumps with a rhythm and a language that is both corporal and spectral, sensual and sacred. The inspiration here is a breath of fire, and those with a passion for poetry will most certainly feel invigorated by it.