“Who is this strong, compelling, peculiar voice that we follow so gladly into realms of the unknown? This beautifully constructed book offers all the pleasures of travel, but the places we travel to here are ones only Catherine Pierce could guide us to, for we live alternate lives, romp with the protagonists of childhood books, traipse through the world of nightmares where for once the creatures are sleeping so we can lie down with the lion. The big themes here—self identity, desire, escape—are illuminated with clarity, scored musically, and enlivened with wit. The Girls of Peculiar is a fabulous book.” 
—Beth Ann Fennelly

“In Catherine Pierce’s poetry world, the girls are ‘bird cries.’ I think these poems are bird cries, lovely and sad. Pierce knows that we lovely and sad humans are built of want and the memory of want. Each of us is a ‘river burst into flame.’ Read these poems and you will remember how to burn.”
—Sherman Alexie