PositiveThe GuardianThe book works best when the jokes are set against a backdrop of genuine pain, so it comes as something of a loss when the plot swerves towards the cartoonish ... Zink matches her satire with real affection for these gangs of intelligent young people, how they are committed to their beliefs and simultaneously adrift in the world ... As the novel moves to its climax, the plottiness of the plot does get a bit exhausting. The networks of relationships grow more complex, the scenarios more absurd. But even when the story feels stretched, there’s a liveliness in Zink’s prose, an exuberance, that carries the reader.
