Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Despite coming-of-age issues heavily laced with substance abuse, depression and angst, not to mention self-mutilation, Liebegott's smart and funny debut boasts an easy charm sure to win her fans. Francesca, aka Goaty, 19, is a fledgling writer (and a virgin) who has followed Irene, her junior-college philosophy teacher, to San Francisco in hopes of building a committed lesbian relationship with her, despite Irene's live-in male and female lovers, Gustavo and Jenny. Goaty isn't much more successful waitressing at IHOP, where she usually shows up for the graveyard shift in a crumpled, stained, smelly uniform. When she finally loses her burdensome virginity, it's to Jenny, though there is then an interlude with Irene when Gustavo is fighting with her. Maria, Goaty's attractive lesbian AA sponsor, helps thicken the plot and the jest. Peppered with heartbreaking flashbacks to a breakdown, with anxious phone calls from Mom, and with hilarious encounters and insights, this is a stirring portrait of the artist as a young goat taking possession of her creativity and of readers' hearts. --Whitney Scott Copyright 2007 Booklist

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Schoolgirl crush frees a young waitress to escape the 'burbs for San Francisco. Francesca's friends think she's wonderful—and why wouldn't they? Beneath a thin veneer of hip cynicism, she's thoughtful, brilliant and genuinely kind. She's also abject and self-destructive, qualities that endear her to her philosophy professor, Irene. The book begins as Francesca follows Irene to San Francisco, hoping that Irene's pity will turn to love. But the story truly gets underway when Francesca realizes the steepness of the price for being near her idol. Irene, it turns out, is no saint. She seems to collect needy students, and already lives with two young lovers, Jenny and Gustavo. Dejected, Francesca ends up in a tiny apartment in a seedy part of town, supporting herself by waitressing at IHOP. And while she waits for her luck to change, she develops a fulfilling, if eccentric, routine. She writes in her journal, tries to figure out how to get a girlfriend, attends AA meetings and seduces the occasional woman. The novel is supposed to be Francesca's journal, and although it is filled with love-sick meditations about women, Irene in particular, it is also filled with impressively realized vignettes about Francesca's customers, her parents and her lovers. Part of Francesca's personality (and part of the story's considerable force) is her fine ear for the tenor and cadences of other people's speech. Francesca is keenly observant; she can mimic her father, her mother and her friends without mocking them, and she is saved from an unbearably coy quirkiness by her readiness to believe anything anyone tells her about herself. Watching Francesca realize how much she loves her little apartment, her new friends and even her grubby, smelly uniform is one of the many satisfactions here. Tender writing about a raw life. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Francesca is a 20-year-old lesbian hopelessly infatuated with Irene, her community-college philosophy professor. Irene has taken a sabbatical to live in San Francisco for the year, and Francesca, at loose ends, follows her there in hopes of being included in her inner circle. The narrative traces Francesca's struggles to make sense of her feelings for Irene as well as Irene's complex relationship with Jenny and Gustavo, coinhabitants of Simplicity House, as they call their communal house, which is anything but simple. In her debut novel, Liebegott (creative writing, Univ. of California, San Diego; The Beautifully Worthless) is at her best when regaling the reader with life at the International House of Pancakes (IHOP), where Francesca works as a waitress to pay the rent, and anyone who has ever waited tables will relate. In her own na?ve way, Francesca makes hilarious, on-target observations about Irene's self-centered idealism and her penchant for surrounding herself with people who worship her. But the true center of the story is Francesca's own sense of self-worth and her struggle to find her way amid the craziness. Recommended for larger public libraries.-Caroline Mann, Univ. of Portland Lib., OR (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly
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Liebegott's debut novel is a coming-of-age coming-out in the tradition of Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle, but here, the portrait of an artist as punk waitress is more a celebration of sexuality than humanity. Twenty-year-old Francesca is a recovering drunk who finds comfort in cutting herself and harbors fantasies of her beautiful AA sponsor, Maria; her former philosophy teacher, Irene; and a soap opera heroine. "I wanted everything: Irene's cheekbones, empathy, and wisdom... the sheer beauty and curves of Maria-and the impossibility of Hope from Days of Our Lives," she confesses. Having followed Irene to San Francisco, Francesca lands a job at the International House of Pancakes, dreams of becoming "the kind of waitress who can carry five plates on each arm and glide around the room doing a dance of pancakes" and works on her memoir about losing her virginity and never quite finding love. The Lambda Literary Award-winning Liebegott (for her book-length poem The Beautifully Worthless) offers strikingly lyrical moments in an otherwise frank narrative of a writer teetering between adolescence and adulthood. (Feb. 13) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved