Response to Christina Ledesma’s “Long Story”

Very effectively written. I never questioned the world that the author created, never had trouble suspending my disbelief, even though a lot of details like names of people and places had been obscured or buried in the text, I still felt like the story was about very real people in a very real world. Small details and humor (don’t get food from trucks with kitchens) fleshed out the story without becoming it’s focus. All of this helped me to feel for the narrator during the last scene, and have an emotional investment in the story. Really, the only thing that has me conflicted about the story is the last couple of sentences. It’s abrupt, and I feel like I’m falling off of a bit of a cliff at the end, but on the other hand, I’m not sure where else there would be to go with the story, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing to be left wanting to read more. On a smaller not, the last two sentences shift from addressing the baby directly to referring to it in the third person. It might give a little more punch to the end if the narrator addresses her child directly, as she had done before.