Response to Rhamah's "Leaving"

          This short story for me focused a lot on identity and finding yourself. The narrator, Bethany, speedily takes us through her voyage of eventually becoming asexual through a series of events with her best friend and ultimately her girlfriend, and not the girl that’s just a friend type. To me, Bethany seemed to be almost aimlessly walking through life. Adolescents and childhood is hard enough for most people, especially during the confusing identity crisis phases when teens struggle with who they are, who they want to become, and finding themselves. For Bethany, she seems to still be in this phase. It seems to me that she simply wants to find herself and her sexuality in which she is lacking. There are a few times when Bethany seems confused, but goes with the flow anyways, especially in the beginning when Katherine made her first move on Bethany with a kiss.

            I really enjoyed the narration and insight we received from Bethany. She provided a little humor and lots of significant background information. Though this was a speedy run through of her and Katherine’s relationship as children to young adults and how she found her lack of sexuality, the narrator provides the right amount of information to allow the reader to accurately follow the story while also receiving insight into other characters. Not only are the grade by grade and year by year little excerpts effective, but the small one-liners about a character helped develop them and give us insight into who they are. One example of this is when Bethany talks about Katherine telling her she thinks she is gay, “I saw one of her hands come up to pick at her face, something she did when she was nervous. Her mom hated it.” I thought little facts like saying that her mom hated when she picked at her face was unique and gave us just a wee bit more of information about Katherine’s character.

                The dialogue throughout was really effective and significant without giving the reader too much unnecessary information. I thought most of the dialogue was realistic, and there were only a couple of instances where I did not think Bethany or Katherine would really say that, such as when the narrator goes from a sarcastic youthful tone and then swaps to a very literary writing tone by saying, “…she gave me so long ago,” or just little nitpicky things like that. I also thought the structure matched the story in which they both flowed very well, even from year to year, or story to story. The story was tied together quite nicely and I found it very insightful.