"You'll find no romanticizing or myth-building here. This One Will Hurt You is a devastating and necessary book, frequently heartbreaking in its examination of the bad humans can do to one another--but full of redemptive acts of goodness, too."-- Holly Goddard Jones, author of The Salt Line
"Crenshaw weaves poignant images throughout these essays, capturing beauty, mystery, and pain embedded in the hills and streams of the real Ozarks. . . . Crenshaw searches the soul and wrestles with hard realities and bitter truths, and his essays will cling, fast as a burr." --Deb Hagan, Brevity
"An essayist focuses on family dynamics and the mortality that challenges us all. . . . The author is a consummate craftsman, whether of concision . . . or in a longer illumination of the elliptical slipperiness of truth." --Kirkus Reviews
"Paul Crenshaw writes some of the finest prose you'll find anywhere and does so without a trace of literary gimmickry or personal showboating. If Chekhov wrote essays, this is what they would sound like." --Robert Atwan
"Every move here feels intentional, every paragraph placed just so, resulting in a book that is a gift for personal nonfiction lovers. Uncommonly affecting, This One Will Hurt You is a debut collection of straightforward beauty." --Jason Hess, Booklist
"Essayist Crenshaw explores in his tender solo debut growing up and living in rural America and coming to terms with unsettling memories. . . . Crenshaw's evocative descriptions of place balance well with his confessional style. Throughout this fine collection, Crenshaw proves a deeply self-reflective narrator, able to expose his innermost worries while remaining keenly aware of the world around him."
--Publishers Weekly