It's Hard Out Here for a B****

Lust is a story by Susan Minot. It is fascinating because it looks at sexual relationships from the point of view of a "loose" girl. Some would even call her a slut. This story has effective storytelling techniques because it chooses to be from the point of view of a character that might have been an antagonist in a different story. Girls that have a lot of sex are normally vilified for some reason, both in society and in media. Minot manages to show a girl that would have been looked down upon and makes her extremely sympathetic.

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"What are you complaining about?" says Jill to me when we talk about [boy] problems." 

"Yeah," says Giddy. "You always have a boyfriend." 

I look at them and think, As if.

This passage is great because the reader is given insight into the character without her having to really say anything. From that one thought, we know that the narrator feels that she has boy problems, but she doesn't feel comfortable with revealing that to the rest of the girls. It is worth noting that the narrator never names herself. A possible tactic that Minot could be using for that is that the narrator doesn't feel that she is worth naming. Throughout the story she drops hints that she is disappearing and feels invisible. One way of disappearing and going unnoticed is to be unnamed.