[Bonjour Tristesse] is as preposterous a book as one is likely to come across in a long time…. Bonjour Tristesse is childish and tiresome in its single-minded dedication to decadence. (pp. 163-64)

The whole long short story reminds one of nothing so much as of [Daisy Ashford's] The Young Visiters. It has that same almost incredible naïveté, but with none of its charm and unconscious humor. It is over-explicit and it is pompous—the doggedly wayward child's view of the grown-up world, seen through a glass immaturely. (p. 164)

[There] never really is any gaiety whatever. The decadence, such as it is, is remarkably tepid and dull. [The characters] all plod so earnestly in the vague direction of pleasure. (p. 165)

Nora L. Nagid, "The Decadent Life," in Commonweal (copyright © 1955 Commonweal Publishing Co., Inc.; reprinted by permission of Commonweal Publishing Co., Inc.), Vol. LXII, No. 6, May 13, 1955, pp. 163-65.