Leaves be gone!   he New York Post writer Linda Stasi gave the show a three stars rating out of four commenting "aside from the gratuitous sexual stuff, Awkward is a really good, funny, fun show". However, Stasi mentioned "this just isn't the kind of thing you'd want to watch with your kids—nor want your kids to watch." According to The Philadelphia Daily News, "Awkward, like Glee, deals gently and semicomically with issues of sexuality and bullying but never really draws blood". HitFix's Daniel Fienberg gave the show a B rating commenting "Not only are high school horrors pretty universal, even if the specifics change, but I can find a way to fit Awkward into a tradition of hyper-literal high school comedies like Pretty in Pink or Heathers or Mean Girls or Juno. It's not as good as any of those, but it's not as bad as Jawbreaker, which is in the same tradition." Variety's Brian Lowry wa s less enthusiastic about the show: "While the premise is refreshingly gimmick-free compared with RJ Berger or Teen Wolf, the situations aren't compelling enough to make this much more than a latter-day Doogie Howser, M.D. with a gender switch." The character of Jenna Hamilton has received positive feedback. Entertainment Weekly wrote Jenna "navigates the sharky waters of high school, friends, mean cheerleaders, and cute boys with a snarky voice-over that makes her—and Awkward.—easy to fall in love with." The Huffington Post deemed Jenna's voice-overs "witty" as " make this high-school dark comedy stand out from a crowd of stereotypical high school prime-time soaps." David Hinckley of the Daily News gave the show a four stars rating out of five and wrote "Awkward is very good". He explained "For all the times we've seen the high school outcast who feels alternately ignored and humiliated by her peer group , she has rarely been played better than Ashley Rickards plays Jenna Hamilton." and went on "If the dramas are exaggerated, Jenna makes the trauma feel legitimate, and her narration gives everything a knowing undertone of humor and self-awareness that keeps the most uncomfortable moments from being painful." Stasi compared Ashley Rickards to Juno actor Elliot Page: "Rickards is a great teen actress of the Page variety—the kind of kid whose pretty face and adorable bearing is swamped by ability to look awkward and offbeat." The Washington Post wrote of Rickards: "Following the well-trod path of Molly Ringwald's Sixteen Candles and Claire Danes's My So-Called Life, she effortlessly manages to elevate the unfresh premise of MTV's new Tuesday night comedy series, Awkward, to something that is tawdry yet honest. Other characters' performances were also well received by critics. Kubicek appreciated that the show's villain, Sadie Sa xton, is not "the typical perfect skinny girl" but "an overweight cheerleader who is popular only thanks to her pare