Unhappily, Mr. Young's skills tend to work against "Who is Angelina?". Ironically, the more deftly he distinguishes the character of Angelina from the skillfully articulated types that surround her and try to tempt her to take up their ways, the more "Who Is Angelina?" tends to resemble countless Bildungsromane that have come before it. For what can one say about Angelina in the end except that she's an intelligent, questing human being who's successfully cut loose from drugs, drink, drags, and dropouts, and is now into meditation?

Still, to say that Angelina is a three-dimension person surrounded by comically delineated cliches is saying something. And so one looks for Mr. Young in his future books to say a good deal more.

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "Fiction in the Melting Pot," in The New York Times (© 1975 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), January 23, 1975, p. 31.∗