All Comments on 'History Lesson'

Absolutely marvellous!! 💥💥💥💥💥

Outstanding, beautiful story.

Thank you for beautiful storytelling.

What a wonderful story! Thank you.

It is beautifully set up - the characters, their histories, the context - and you developed that wonderful tension at the heart of the relationship. We kind of knew it would all work out, but you kept us on edge for a long, long time before bringing it all home safely in the end. Very well done indeed.

Fantastic in every way.

Great story. Thank you for sharing your gift of story telling. Enjoyed it immensely!

So good. Your writing is so thoughtful. Thank you

Outstanding story! Great characters.

5

What an excellent example of story telling. So many times the longer stories found here become dull and uninspired? This work was captivating and enjoyable throughout. A definite 5*, with the only regret that 5 is the highest rating available.

Incredibly sweet, very well written. Not normally my thing, but... excellent work!

This is another great story, told by a talented writer. I love the time spent on setting, but mostly those vivid, realistic, well-developed characters. I appreciate the quirky Welsh details, too.

As always, thank you for writing and thank you for sharing your work.

The Welsh was distracting since the reader would need to look at the “appendix” to know what they meant. I get why our hero was reluctant to expose Sheila’s cheating, but I think you overplayed that plot line a bit. Otherwise, great read with good balance of narrative, dialogue, and character development. 4.7*

As I finished the story I couldn't help but feel at peace with life. Thanks for this.

Thoroughly heartwarming and a beautiful story. Thank you.

Please accept my sincere apologies for only scoring this five-stars. Ten or fifteen might be an adequate start.

The characters, the situations, and the _story_ are wonderfully and realistically presented.

I did graduate work at Illinois State mumble mumble decades ago, and yes, "Normal, IL," always brings things to a stop.

...Rogers Hornsby!! :^) :^)

THANK YOU for a delightful story. I had Jenny pegged at page4.

Beautiful ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Nice story but way too long. Could have been 6 pages and still beena winner

Though I'm sure most of us suspected from the start how the story would end, the journey there was entrancing. Thank you so much for sharing your year long effort with us. It a certainly not a year misspent! Thank also you for sharing the quotes. Being pretty much a Philistine I can't say that I recognized any of them but the Mark Twain attributed quote is especially memorable. I don't know where you personally stand on the Dylan/Hendrix question but hearing Dylan's harmonica stylings immediately make me want to reach for Electric Ladyland. 5 stars

Wow! Another outstanding story from a gifted author!

Thank you!🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

The mc seems like the kind of guy women fantasize about, but condescendingly embrace IRL

lost interest in this one after glancing at the glossary at the end! No way I'm going to wade through a long story and have to flip back and forth between what page I'm on and the last page for translation! Since I didn't even start the story, I'm not going to rate it not fair to the author or Literotica.

Well done, thanks!

Nice story… 5’s love almost everyone… but when he said “my Jenny” I immediately went into my inner Forrest Gump voice …. 😇

Outstanding. For me the Welsh interludes were interestingly educational and made it somewhat more personal.

Ignore the trolls. This was an amazing and well crafted love story. The sensitivity to love - the understanding that love has no boundaries. Your characters were well crafted and the storyline flowed smoothly. Including the Welsh was a touch of genius. Thank you for the journey to the beginning of a "Happy Ever After". K

I’m sorry that my review might appear harsh, particularly since you put so much time and energy into this story.

1. My biggest complaint is the shift of point of view. A good story is told from one point of view, period. Action which occurs outside of the first person’s view needs to be woven into the story in other ways. If you absolutely can’t or won’t change how you’ve designed this, at least put those non-first person sections in a different type ( italics? ) or otherwise label them somehow. Best is to avoid them altogether.

2. I agree with others about the Welsh usage. Way too interrupting. A guy who grew up but left Wales (where English is quite common and is taught in the schools) at age fourteen would not be using so much Welsh twenty years later. Maybe one or two words could have been dropped in (hello, thank you or dear) to add some exotic flavor but these would best be used only when the meaning was clear from the context. I had to open a second webpage just so I could read the translations on the poorly alphabetized list.

3. I have to agree with the comment above about the length of the story. Several little subplots which added nothing to the total story could have easily been eliminated. (Trip back to Wales and the childhood girlfriend, among several others.)

4. As someone who has written stories of straight people developing same-sex relationships and vise versa, I feel you missed out on the opportunity to delve into the whole issue of sexual identity and how difficult it is for someone to enter a sexual relationship outside of their usual preference.

5. With the exception of the above and a few minor hiccups, the story was fairly well written.

6. For some reason I had some trouble generating much empathy for the main character but that is on me. One weak plot point was why this grieving loner suddenly asked them out to eat once he apologized for his ‘staring.’ One would have expected him to mutter his apologies and quickly leave. The whole basis for the beginning of the relationship seemed artificial.

Having said all of that, this has the makings of a very good story and if the above issues were dealt with, a five star rating would easily be in the offing. Alas, it is not to be now.

Fantastic build up! This is a story that should be given 10 stars!

Ignore the criticism of the anonymous, if they won't post with their name, they can't be taken seriously, JMHO.

Fantastic story, very unusual blending of characters. The addition of the Welsh Celtic language was top shelf.

Well, I think the story is pretty perfect. A real romance. I ignore anonymous comments anyway!

This is one I wish I could give a 10 to! I could not put it down once I started, even though I try to stay away from long stories. And contrary to a previous anonymous post I think the occasional other person viewpoint perfectly filled in. The story often had me laughing, but also occasionally brought tears...to me that is the epitome of a great story! Keep it up!

I got to the end of page 1 and saw there were 14 more. Almost stopped at that point as I'm not a fan of long stories, but thought I would see where it was going. I read it over several days and the next thing I knew I was at page 15. Could it have been shorter? Maybe, but it seems the length was needed to properly tell the whole story.

The Welsh phrases didn't bother me at all. Most of the time, the author pretty much stated what it meant right afterwards, and otherwise it was pretty easy to figure out from the context. I did try pronouncing them to myself as I read the story, only to find in the appendix how badly I had butchered it. If I ever go to Wales, I best stick with English.

I was somewhat expecting a little political commentary on lesbian, gay-to-hetero, rape, and other sensitive issues, but the author wisely stayed away from that.

Very nice story, if a bit predictable, very sensitively told - I could empathize well with Ieuan.

What I can't imagine, though, is someone acting against their sexual orientation. While I can imagine loving someone of the same sex, I can't imagine having sex with them. So living together would include everything else - except sex.

Maybe someone who is not straight himself can comment on this ?

It could be very revealing !

Nevertheless : 5/5 stars !

Wow, loved it thank you for sharing this .

A fantastic beautiful romance.

Just outstanding.

5stars

Long, but very engaging. So very well written. Thanks for sharing!

Long, but worth it in the end.

Probably one of the greatest romantic stories I’ve ever read. Loved the Welsh angle.

A truly lovely story. Thank you for sharing your talent.

Just a wonderful story.

Would prefer to give 10 stars. Magnificent.

EXCELLENT!

A true romance story with adversity of course. There is no love without adversity. Dedication, commitment and love. Too often marriages fail due to a lack of communication between husband and wife. You must tell each other what you want and what you expect from the partnership you have formed, because that is what marriage is, a partnership. Lovely story. 5 stars

WOW!! Agreat story.

Thanks so much, what an amazing story

It was truly an amazing journey. Thank you for sharing it.

We are soooo very misty in awe of such a beautiful love story.

Thank you for sharing from your heart to ours.

The MC is a simp, the spawn of simps, and fed a super-simp diet.

He is the king of suckers.

Great story, a follow up on the ex would have been helpful, if only for avoidance of loose threads, that said the story doesn’t suffer in any way from her absence.

5⭐️ all the way, many thanks for writing and posting, cheers, Ppfzz.

Absolutely the most heartwarming story that i have read on Literotica - ever!

A great story, credible and I enjoyed reading. Thank you.

Wow, what a wonderful story! I had put off reading it due to its length, but had a 53K hole in my schedule last night and read the first page. I got sucked in and read til my eyes no longer functioned. I had to finish the story this morning before I could get on with breakfast. :)

I appreciate all of the hard work you have put into developing several complex characters and then allowing their relationships to evolve slowly at a believable pace. Very well done!

Foreign languages are one of my hobbies, and I enjoy being exposed to languages I don’t know. Therefore, I loved the many bits of Welsh you sprinkled throughout the text. Some commenters have raised the question of whether it is believable for Ieuan to use so much Welsh in his everyday life in the U.S. However, I think that you have given us ample justification for this. Moving to the far side of another continent across an ocean as a teen can be fairly traumatic. Suddenly you’re the odd person with an odd accent who doesn’t play the local version of football and has no friends to help you through the shitstorm of teen intrigues that fill one’s high school years. You resent your parents for moving you and you desperately miss your own culture. With that in mind, it’s easy to see why a 14-year-old boy from Wales would continue speaking Welsh not only as an act of rebellion, but also to try to hang on to as many bits of his former life as he can.

It’s pretty clear that Jenny was date-raped with the aid of at least alcohol, and possibly other agents as well. By enabling this rape to further her own advancement, it becomes clear just what a reprehensible narcissist Sheila really is. Good riddance.

Thanks for posting this tasty tale of two injured souls surviving due to the love and kindness of their friends, family and each other.

Thank you for the wonderful story. I admit, I was moved to tears on occasion.

Such an outstanding and so beautiful Love story from the hearts and souls of two so much in need; and now, together forever and ever.

Thank you for sharing from your heart and soul with deep words that have touched us and brought us both to many misty moments as we shed tears of happiness!

You have become one of our most favorite writers and we look forward to be drawn in and touched so much more.

An exceptional story. Loved Jenny's banter in her dialog. And who couldn't love Hank the talking dog.

I loved the story. As a curiosity, this is the second story by this author I've read and both are about turning a lesbian. I wonder if the author has a fetish.

A wonderful story, so full of love. I cried whilst reading it, a novum for me on Lit.

Thanks for this gem of a story! You have a real gift for establishing your characters with a few words, mannerisms and interactions that convey so much about who they are. I immediately fell in love with Jenny, whose warmth and natural affection came through in her conviviality towards Ieuan early on and her affectionate and clever poking fun at him. Similar with the quirky fellow professor, Ieuan‘s sister and niece, and Hank the dog as well. Beyond the characters who I loved to learn about and from, it is a lovely story of healing from loss and heartache, and finding love in front of you as the balm for needy hearts.

Thanks to jalibar62 for blessing us with this precious story.

From the bottom of my soul, Thank You.

wow. worth the length. thank you

I took a chance on this story, and wow … I’m glad I did! I cried, I laughed, and I loved the progression of the characters and their story. Also, I’m a quarter Welsh, and this story gave me reason for visiting my homeland. It also gave me some names to suggest for our newest granddaughter!

Haven't read many stories that evokes so many different emotions. Thanks!!!!

Very happy to have found your story. Loved the fullness of the characters, and all of the highs and lows and everything in between. I will be reading the rest of your works now.