Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas praised the volume as "a brilliant collection of naturalistic glimpses of a world with terrifying holes in it."[2]
Reappraising the book in 2011 for The Guardian, Stephanie Cross wrote:
The title story might be the one for which Shirley Jackson is famed but, as this volume suggests, it was not entirely typical of her oeuvre. First published in 1948, "The Lottery" details a long-established rite that culminates in murder. Elsewhere, however, Jackson aims to disquiet rather than shock: the threat is often latent in Jackson's work, as Donna Tartt has observed. The weird farming community of "The Lottery" seems likewise anomalous: Jackson's protagonists tend to be mothers, or women starting their homemaking careers [...] There is sparkling comedy in this collection, as well as glimpses of Jackson the horror novelist [...] But there are also subtle studies of disillusionment and snobbery – Jackson is a sympathetic, penetrating observer of the domestic mundane – and, most notably in "Flower Garden", of racism. [...] Some short stories snap shut like traps – not Jackson's. Nevertheless, the way that they slide into place seems equally fated and final.[3]
