" Aaron's characteristic aloofness cripples this book from the outset. He's so carefully guarded his persona and image that Bryant is forced to dwell on his statistics and his contributions to African-American baseball, but these aspects have been covered elsewhere, and so feel pedantic and one-sided here. Bryant does his best with a difficult subject, and has certainly compiled a workable body of research, even if his vanilla writing doesn't really carry all of it efficiently. But again, the subject remains distant, so far out of reach on a pedestal that we never engage with his story. One almost feels Aaron's resentment at being scrutinized, even at this distance. The detachment of the text is thus a major tradeoff: we sense the reserve of Aaron himself, but we never get to know him beyond the usual hard-knock life story, the flash of his wrists and the home-run record. A letdown, not all (or even mostly) Bryant's fault, but a letdown nonetheless. "
— Nathan, 1/4/2014