"[16] Cult book review website Workshy Fop stated that, "Roberts creates strange, disjointed narratives; his prose features lists, brutally short sentences, social media updates and offbeat pop-culture references.

"[18] In an essay, which he worked on with essayist Chelsea Hodson before publishing in his newsletter, Roberts accused an unnamed writer of releasing a "total shitshow of a novel" which was "a clear aping of the style" of his collection.

In his foreword, an essay titled "Kim is Offline", the novelist and critic Srđan Srdić described Richard Owain Roberts as a natural successor to David Foster Wallace.

[22] Writing in Wales Arts Review, Nigel Jarrett described the story as, "fresh, fugitive, dreamlike, yet one in which the writer is in complete control of the aesthetic".

"[27] It is described by the publisher as: "A deeply poignant and bleakly comic debut novel about loneliness, the "violent revenge thriller" category on Netflix, solipsism, rural gentrification, Jack Black, and learning to exist in the least excruciating way possible.

[28] Anthony Cummins writing for Literary Review, having made comparisons with Tao Lin and Martin Amis, said of the novel, "[it] is recognisably alt-lit in style and sensibility, but with the benefit of added heart.

"[29] Kirkus Reviews described the novel as "a witty, irony-rich coming-of-age story" and a "brisk, surprisingly deep debut novel" that "recalls Roddy Doyle, albeit at more of an emotional remove.

[32] New Welsh Review compared Roberts to Bret Easton Ellis and said he was "able to perfectly capture the nihilism and pop culture of the adult millennial generation.

"[33] Hello Friend We Missed You was later shortlisted for the Wales Arts Review Book of the Year prize,[34] with the final award eventually going to the recently deceased Jan Morris for her non fiction collection Thinking Again.

In August 2020, the novel was included on The Guardian's Not the Booker prize longlist alongside such contemporaries as Jenny Offill, Garth Greenwell, Brandon Taylor and Rob Doyle.

"[25] The BBC Radio Review Show described Hello Friend We Missed You as "a turning point in Welsh fiction"[38] As with Roberts' short fiction debut All The Places We Lived, the Serbian language rights for Hello Friend We Missed You have been acquired by Partizanska Knjiga, the first time Parthian Books have sold foreign translation rights ahead of English language publication.

"[39] A video of Roberts reading from the novel was published by Wales Arts Review,[40] along with a short clip of ULTRA,[41] as part of its Digithon festival, organised in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

[48] Outside of writing, Roberts likes to "read sports management biographies on my wife's Kindle, look at Jaden and Willow's Twitter, walk aimlessly around Mount Chiliad trying to befriend the wildlife".