The way that this novel dramatizes the disjointed lives of the 1960s generation as they come of age painfully in the 1970s makes it an excellent novel for study, either as a sociological document or as a bittersweet valentine to a lost age. It is also an excellent example of the formless loosely structured contemporary novel which deemphasizes plot in favor of situation and maps of everyday moments exhaustively rendered.

Reviewers in the 1970s generally pointed out how effectively the book captures the despondency, aimlessness and resignation of characters forced to compromise with their social commitment of the 1960s in order to survive the transition into adulthood. Beattie claims that she went out of her way to say something in the book about the consequences of the end of the decade.

Chilly Scenes of Winter's central plot focuses on Charlie, who is waiting for Laura, a...