SSRJ #4-Minot

It seems that I was so carried away with how awful Updike's Summer was, I posted it as my SSRJ instead of Minot's "Lust". I digressed from a stalking teenage boy to a promiscious young teenage girl. If only my mother knew I was reading such stories........
The narrator is a rich girl who is also loose with the guys. She gets to go to private school and nice vacation places but she uses every location to be with another boy. “Lust” is a good title because she is definitely not in love with any of the guys she was with. As a guy, I can see the picture of how it is with a guy especially a young guy who is focused on conquering the ladies. When you are young and stupid you are young and stupid so you do not pay attention to the emotions of the girl afterward. I cannot speak to how a woman feels but I would think she is accurate in her depiction of the girl’s reactions. Teenage sex was similar to what she is describing. The story takes place in the 70s and 80s when teen sex was rampant, before the AIDS scare. I grew up in the era also and I see that as true. Teens know what they are doing, their morals seem to go to the wayside when it comes to the attractions and raging hormones during the teen years, but they don’t see the consequences until it is too late. The tone is choppy and jumpy, going quickly from one sexual encounter to another. You almost get dizzy with the jumping from one to another, but with little detail on each. You only get a glimpse of each encounter. The title suggested to me a slower pace for the story, sort of like a romance novel or something. She isn’t happy and it emanates out from her by her sexual actions. Sometimes we see happiness as almost a boring emotion. There is more ways to be unhappy, disappointed and frustrated than ways to be happy. There is more conflict and ways to show bad situations than good ones.