[Flames Going Out] is a depressing, unrelievedly negative novel: Platt handles the shifting of time adequately and the writing style is competent, and he conveys, as he did years (and many books) ago in The Boy Who Could Make Himself Disappear, with bitter brilliance the conflicts within a psychotic personality. As a novel, however, this seems too monochrome, too intricate, too directionless to reach readers. (pp. 159-60)

Zena Sutherland, in her review of "Flames Going Out," in Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (reprinted by permission of The University of Chicago Press; © 1981 by The University of Chicago), Vol. 34, No. 8, April, 1981, pp. 159-60.