Linda Barrett Osborne
Last Updated on June 7, 2022, by eNotes Editorial. Word Count: 81
Anne [in A Formal Feeling], though reserved and difficult, is not self-pitying. She is so human and so in need of loving that she is sympathetic and engaging from the beginning, and the other characters balance her with a warmth that is genuine and free of sentimentality. A Formal Feeling is straightforward, absorbing, and perceptive, true to an adolescent's feelings about mothers and about grief.
Linda Barrett Osborne, "Learning to Live without Mother," in Book World—The Washington Post, October 10, 1982, p. 6.∗
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