[Wild Oats is] a slight, imperfect, but wisely funny and eminently publishable first novel…. (p. 43)

[Billy's] nebbishly Galahad act, which owes rather too much to The Graduate and other touchstones of postadolescent romanticism, isn't quite enough of a story to parlay [his] charmingly low-key hysteria (at one point all his friends and relations—plus characters from The Faerie Queene—form a conga line in his insomniac fantasies) into shapely, full-length fiction. But never mind. By not trying too hard to be hip, hilarious, or touching, Epstein winds up being all three—in a canny and surprisingly dry novel of modest present pleasures and tremendous future promise. (pp. 43-4)

Josh Rubins, "Books in Brief: 'Wild Oats'," in Saturday Review (copyright © 1979 by Saturday Review; all rights reserved; reprinted by permission), Vol. 6, No. 13, June 23, 1979, pp. 43-4.