O, The Oprah Magazine
"hugely satisfying... With loving regard and agile scholarship, Boyd fills the gaps in an exhilarating life."

Review: Wrapped in Rainbows by Valerie Boyd
By Emily Bernard
Black Issues Book Review
January/February 2003
Taking on the task of interpreting Hurston’s life is, in itself, a brave choice. It is possible that no other African-American women writer has been both source and object of such public anxieties, myths, fantasies, and fears. In her biography, Boyd manages to present us with a rich portrait of this icon, one that both honors the life that was lived as well as the myths that it produced.

Biography Unwraps `Lost Years' of Writer Zora Neale Hurston
By Renee Graham, Globe Staff
The Boston Globe
01/06/2003
"Wrapped in Rainbows," Valerie Boyd 's sumptuous biography of Zora Neale Hurston , is the consummate examination of the writer's flamboyant life, easily surpassing Hurston 's perplexing 1942 autobiography, "Dust Tracks on a Road," which was less a revealing memoir than a shell game of shadowy half-truths.

The Flamboyant, Flawed Life of Writer Zora Neale Hurston
By Greg Johnson
For The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
12/27/02
The Verdict: The definitive account of a remarkable life.