At the time [Sontag] died, she was America’s best-known public intellectual. To my mind, she was also the most exemplary. Intellectually and imaginatively gifted to an extraordinary degree, she used her fearless intelligence to illuminate some of the deepest contradictions of contemporary life

Intense and insightful . . . some excellent and essential essays

Sontag’s clear thinking . . . shines like a spotlight in dark places

A formidable mind . . . America’s foremost intellectual . . . [Sontag’s] willingness to shoulder the responsibility and complicity for acts that most Americans are only too eager to condemn is the sign of a spirit open to examining any idea except compromise

[A] powerful collection . . . Sontag's brilliance as a literary critic, her keen analytical skill and her genius for the searingly apt phrase are all fiercely displayed here

Stupendous . . . hilarious... Batuman is a genius, rendering human folly at its most colorful and borderline surreal

The central pleasure of reading Elif Batuman's ferociously intelligent fiction...[is] the thrill of encountering things you already half-knew, rendered in language with lyrical precision... hopefully, there will be a third installment of the adventures of Elif Batuman's brilliantly modern picaro.

Wonderfully idiosyncratic... Charming

Delightful... Batuman has a formidable deadpan wit... Selin is not only an astute observer but displays a touching capacity for awe.

A charming, mordantly funny follow-up to her first novel... triumphal.

Either/Or is an astute and very amusing read, packed with pin-sharp observations delivered in a deadpan style.

Selin, the magnetic protagonist in Batuman's brilliant and comedic first novel, The Idiot (2017), returns . . . Selin reads and ponders the human condition, culminating in a breath-catching ending that will leave spellbound readers hoping for more from Batuman's bright and witty adventurer of conscience.

[A] charming, smart and completely idiosyncratic take on art, life and the gap between.

One of the most convincing fictional descriptions of overwhelming despair I have read... Batuman... [has] extraordinary control of the narrative voice.

Effervescent . . . Observant, defiant, and newly on antidepressants, Selin approaches the mystery of human relations with a beginner's naivete and sharp intelligence . . . Batuman's light touch and humor are brought to bear on serious questions . . . As accomplished as The Idiot was, this improves upon it, and Batuman's already sharp chops as a novelist come across as even more refined in these pages. Readers will be enraptured.

A brilliant meditation on womanhood and identity. By turns hilarious and illuminating.

What elevates this far above the typical campus novel is Ms. Batuman's wry perspective . . . Selin's observations are frequently hilarious, sometimes touching and always original . . . There's both a sweet innocence and a sophisticated meta aspect to all this, a level on which Either/Or is about how Selin (and her creator) came to create the very book we're reading . . . [A] charming, hyper-literary novel . . . To be continued, we hope.

Batuman, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and New Yorker writer, brings delicious detail and light irony to her heroine's quest.

Either/Or is driven by intellectual questions: it's a novel of ideas narrated by a protagonist who, even in her misery, is delightful company.

Elif Batuman's debut novel, The Idiot, is one of the best works of fiction published in the 21st century. Her new novel, Either/Or, picks up where The Idiot left off. . . . Batuman has an extremely keen sense for what makes characters engaging and renders it all in supernaturally observant and funny prose.

Witty, funny and revelatory.

Selin is a disarming narrator, tossing off insights that are revelatory, moving, and laugh-out-loud funny - sometimes all at once - and it's exciting to watch her become the author of her own story. Another delightfully cerebral and bighearted novel from a distinctive voice in contemporary fiction.

In 2018, Elif Batuman's witty campus novel, The Idiot, was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. . . . Now, Batuman returns with a sequel, Either/Or, that picks up during Selin's just-as-messy sophomore year. Expect a master course in snappy social observation.

Batuman's latest picks up where her deeply enjoyable 2017 novel The Idiot left off, with Selin now a sophomore at Harvard, trying to untangle all that has happened, and all that could. Besides, Kierkegaard/Elliott Smith vibes will always bring me to the table.

[A] much-anticipated sequel. Either/Or takes places in 1996 and follows Selin throughout her sophomore year as she attempts to make sense of everything that happened the summer before.

Compelling, with witty, hilarious observations on life.

[A] charming and witty new story... We follow Selin...as she navigates the next chapter of her life with hilarious results.

Superb... Either/Or is a smart and highly amusing book, the third by American Turkish author Batuman, firmly establishing her as great new contemporary literary talent.

Surely to be a classic of the genre... [An] impressive feat of being both searingly smart and funny

Batuman has taken what made The Idiot so brilliant, distilled it, and created an equally brilliant new work. Either/Or is unbridled joy.

Funny... Unforgettable... Batuman is particularly good on sex and sexual politics... The star feature is the narration... garrulous, rambunctious... full of baroque riffs and digressions.

A fresh voice is a rare thing, and Elif Batuman is one such.

Either/Or is extremely funny and delightfully ludic, as it probes the very act of reading from the point of view of confused university student Selin.

I was desperately looking forward to Elif Batuman's Either/Or, and it more than lived up to it.

Re-encountering Selin...felt like being reunited with an old friend.

Hilarious.

I greatly enjoyed the comic zing of Elif Batuman's delightful Either/Or

Witty, intelligent and funny... [Selin's] inner monologue is addictive enough to read a thousand more pages of, and I can only cross my fingers that this isn't the last instalment of the series.

Just as funny and self-aware and clever as The Idiot.

Funny, wry and insightful

Laugh out loud…hilarious and thoughtful