All Comments on 'In the Stacks'

I had trouble reading in all-italics. That's really just carelessness, but it hampered my enjoyment.<p>Other than that, the writing was a bit arch in places, over-dramatic (he was "lifeless" at the end? I don't think so), and the premise seemed weak.<p>That said, the writing was better than average. I'd like to see this author get with an editor / advisor to rein in the prose, but I see potential.

you should add more chapters to this and see what happens between them next....maybe she'll fall in love with him

Have you ever read a book--or even a short story--that was printed all in Italics? I doubt that you have, because it is hardly ever done. It's a strain to read something that's all in Italics, which are normally reserved for book titles or for setting certain words apart for emphasis.

You seem to be an educated person, and you have an interesting story that would have rated far higher except for the Italics. Keep working!

Please don't write in italics.

I agree about getting rid of the Italics. Make her fall in love with him it was mentioned she was tired of Jocks who would end up working at dairy Queen. They may even get engaged and married.

Actually, and i am probably a great deal older than you are, the hot girls who might have done something like that would probably have been impelled by more than curiosity or a desire to have sex in a strange or unusual place with an unlikely sperm-donor. Therefore the slight reluctance shown by our hero would probably have been replaced by either a very self-protective refusal or a "what-the-hell, I'll never get another shot at her" bravado.

Having said that, I know of several extremely unlikely pairings which occurred in my high-school in the late 50s and early 60s, in which a white society girl became the mate of a boy from outside that society and indeed, in a couple of instances, literally from the wrong side of the tracks which, in those days implied racial segregation, or completely unacceptable whites - for whatever reason, usually poverty - which was as unforgivable as having been born of the wrong race.

The parting shot, in which the girl offers her cum-soaked underwear as a keepsake, is what brought back to me the remembrance of society as it was when I was growing up. There was no DNA test in those days so she had nothing to lose by making such an offering - and it sounded, to me, like a dismissal of an underling who had performed his function and was no longer important.

That might be, simply, my cultural bias interpreting an event wrongly - but that's how it seemed to me - and yet, given such an opportunity (however generated) I would have followed her and tried to please her while making sure I was pleased no matter what it was about.