“Spare and buoyantly written, Cynthia Holz’s third novel is about … well, about life… Holz paints crankiness, fatigue, ecstasy, anger, jealousy—in fact, the entire gamut of everyday human emotion—with calm, nourishing acceptance.” (The Globe and Mail, August 1999)
“Holz’s prose is fluid and she strikes an effective balance between compassion and understated humour… [Semi-detached has] thoughtfulness and heart.” (The Toronto Star, August 1999)
“With compassion and sensitivity, a touch of culinary humour sprinkled here and there, Cynthia Holz has written a love story with a twist. Semi-detached is about falling in love with your spouse all over again.” (The Montreal Gazette, September 1999)
“Semi-detached has an urban sensibility. Danger and uncertainty create anxiety and empathy in the reader, drawing her into the story. Cynthia Holz gives us a very 1990s tale of an unhappy family’s search for happiness. The novel is at once a gritty piece of social realism, an adventure story and a moral fable.” (Literary Review of Canada, February 2000)
“Semi-detached is the sort of book to curl up with and not put down. Holz delicately and gently dissects marriage, bringing up many of the issues facing people today. No simple answer exists for any individual or couple—and that’s what makes this novel so worth reading.” (The Calgary Herald, September 1999)
“At times touchingly funny, Semi-detached punches all the buttons of a generation of aging baby-boomers for whom the empty nest, so long awaited, can prove a very mixed blessing .” (The Ottawa Citizen, December 1999)