Cheeky ... Though this is Adrian’s sixth book, it brims with the self-assured audacity behind nearly every great debut ... An utterly compelling picaresque ... The book’s many self-references, and references to those self-references, are what make the reading experience such fun ... A finale full of surprises, including...one perfectly executed reversal of our expectations ... For its wit and perspicacity, Seduction Theory can easily be cataloged in the company of Ann Beattie’s Walks With Men.
Smart, funny and enjoyable ... Its clever conceits—though perhaps lent on just a tad too heavily in the concluding pages—in no way detract from the novel’s other myriad charms ... A compelling narrative ... An engaging, entertaining puzzle.
Sharp, clever ... The first two thirds of the novel, which picks apart the complicated marriage of Simone and Ethan, is deeply enjoyable. But once Roberta inserts herself in the narrative it all becomes increasingly claustrophobic ... Paradoxically, Seduction Theory falls victim to the fatal flaw of the MFA novels it seems to satirise—being too clever by half.
