[In Them That Glitter and Them That Don't, Greene] shouts through her characters' conversation, bringing a sophisticated, wise-cracking tone and a cosmopolitan awareness that doesn't match up with the folk of Dexter County, Arkansas. Carol Ann Delaney, not surprisingly, wants to flee her surroundings and better herself, and the way she envisions doing it is by becoming a country singer, "all aglitter in a gown of sequins and feathers," lavishly praised by "the country and western music critic for The New York Times." Or, singing some of her favorite songs, Carol Ann thinks of herself as "there inside those batty Beatles" world within a world. Their zany, joyful world of 'The Yellow Submarine.'" None of this thought or language rings true. Bette Greene may have grown up in Arkansas, but she's East Coast now, through and through. And there are dozens of similar examples scattered around the book: it's like dress-up in reverse, with a grown woman hunched down, trying to fit her shoulders into a child-sized jacket.

Michele Slung, "Adolescent Heroines," in Book World—The Washington Post, May 8, 1983, p. 14.∗