Guest's first novel, Ordinary People …, was such a publishing/media event that her second is bound to be closely scrutinized and compared. Second Heaven may disappoint; its subject of child abuse and its juvenile detention center setting are farther from the mainstream, and its structure (alternate sections from the viewpoint of three main characters) is less tight. But what Guest does well—getting into the heart, soul, and mind of a troubled teenager—she does marvelously well…. More pain and less polish than Ordinary People, but the same strong core of sensitivity and insight.

Michele M. Leber, in a review of Second Heaven, in Library Journal, Vol. 107, No. 13, July, 1982, p. 1344.