Piercy assumes much reader familiarity with the issues explored in Vida.

Hence, exposition and explanation of character motivation are not provided.

Of this novel, Vivian Gornick says: "There is neither sufficient substance to the original political history nor to the subsequent spiritual legacy." Elinor Langer defends Piercy's choice in this regard, however, calling it "a deliberate decision, a product of the subordination of the novelist's detachment to the radical's allegiance. If the underground metaphor means the necessities of survival dominate the possibility of reappraisal, she will accept the limitation rather than alter the point of view." Some readers have held they cannot empathize with Piercy's characters because she does not convince them the destructive behavior of those characters is justified. Others find much that is praiseworthy in Vida.

Langer contends the novel is a technical tour de force, a "fully controlled, tightly structured dramatic narrative of such artful...