PositiveThe AV ClubThis over-analysis is familiar to anyone who knows about dating in 2017, but Batuman still manages to make the shift from face-time to screen-time romance feel new and confusing, and interesting ... The Idiot has a tonal consistency throughout that many contemporary authors struggle to maintain, if they can latch onto one at all. It is poignant, and tentative, and carefully caustic. It is at turns depressingly real, and unbelievably hilarious ... an impressive debut with a ridiculous amount of charm and a protagonist so relatable she’s almost impossible to forget. Where it might lose readers is in its structure. The novel, at times, reads more experimentally than most modern American fiction.
