RaveLos Angeles Review of Books... excellent ... This isn’t a work of philosophy; Dorothy is mercifully light on \'deep thoughts.\' The narration is also ironic in that it has many layers of signification: there are lots of gaps between what Dorothy says and what she thinks. She lives more in her head than in the world. In that way, the title is sincere ... This is an anti-Bildungsroman, without much epiphany or plot ... It’s melancholia that engenders reflexivity and consciousness. It’s melancholia, in other words, that brings about the life of the mind. It also brought about The Life of the Mind. And the fact of this novel, its creation, gave me some hope for Dorothy. She didn’t write this book, of course, but it feels like the funny and moving and true book that she might write if she ever worked through her own melancholy.
