["Leap Before You Look"] is very bright and busy. Although divorce is the pivot, the author has added so many "with-it" subjects—Women's Lib, ecology, drop-outs, encounter groups—that at times her fiction resembles a new variety of the "Whole Earth Catalog." Her characters ring true, and so does her dialogue. Unfortunately her heroine, Jimmie (whom we pick up as a tomboy and leave a romantic teen-ager), falls disastrously out of character in the middle of the book. From the onset Jimmie seems to understand—better than they—her parents' constant dissension and her mother's peculiar withdrawal and hostility. But when her parents finally announce that they are actually going through with a divorce, Jimmie reacts with rage compounded by complete astonishment. How can this "perfectly happy marriage" break up? This kind of nonsequential thinking is inconsistent and—at the least—disconcerting. (p. 8)

Lael Scott, in The New...