Miss L'Engle's second novel ["Ilsa"] does not warrant the enthusiasm with which her first offering, "The Small Rain," was received. The novel is told in the first person by Ilsa's perennial admirer, a sapless youth of the old South, whose sensitivity and humility do little to relieve the tedium of his perpetual, unspoken devotion….

[L'Engle's characters] would probably not survive on a soap opera.

Eunice Holsaert, "Hollow Lives," in The New York Times Book Review (© 1946 by The New York Times Company: reprinted by permission), April 28, 1946, p. 14.