“With poignancy, honesty, and grace, Becker contends with the messy implications of her lesbian sexuality, Jewish identity, and sister's suicide. . . . Becker is acutely aware of, and devastated by, her many losses, but emerges defiant and admirably without regret or shame.”

—Boston Review

“Gathered at the edge of each poem in Robin Becker's fourth collection, palpable and terrible, wait the forces of chaos. Love affairs end, families dissolve, the kingdoms of childhood are lost. All-American Girl, despite it insouciant title, is a sad book recounting a life fully adult and aware of human limits.  As a lesbian and a Jew, Becker claims a history of expulsion and isolation. What is astonishing in these poems is how the author uses irony and humor-abundant in imagery as well as tone-to define rather than distance herself from such knowledge.”

--Ploughshares