I really liked this short story! “Annunciation” presents itself as a retelling of the past of a troubled recent college graduate who is struggling to keep herself afloat. The most compelling part of this story is the description. By the end, I felt like the characters in this story were all real, that this story was actualyl a retelling of a true one. Each character is both flawed and meritorious, has shortcomings and strengths. We see the narrator meet Anais, a devout worshipper of an evangelical preacher and struggling mother. While the narrator dislikes Anais at first, we grow to appreciate her and the hardships she faces through the narrator’s own change of view. The author uses a technique of building up a lot of information related to the characters without revealing some of the most basic, bottom level information. For example, with Griselda, we hear her telling these outlandish stories that the narrator dismisses as tall tales. It is revealed at the end that the stories were not lies, but all truth. This reveal worked really well. I really thought it recontextualized the characters in a super interesting light that I’ve never seen done before.