The book deals with issues including sex, infidelity, social consciousness, and school violence.
Gary Krist of The New York Times wrote that this novel by Homes was "far more effectively unsettling [than her previous The End of Alice], mainly because she serves up her feast of deviance in a narrative that is much more difficult to dismiss.
"[1]He says of the last chapter: "But here, again, Homes proves herself such a virtuoso portraitist of modern depravity that any sense of violation is complicated by an overwhelming exhilaration.
"[1]He concluded with a caveat: "In her last two novels, the desire to outrage is so conspicuous that it risks obscuring her powerful gifts as a novelist.
"[1] Jill Adams in The Barcelona Review described this novel as having Homes' "trademark style of wry humor applied to the uncanny dissection of suburbia’s facade.