All Comments on 'Once Upon a Time in Emmitsburg'

Incredibly well written, but there were some logical leaps I just couldn’t make. First....if his legs are that messed up then joining the Army would not happen. Second...OCS...when did he go to college and get his degree?? If you drop the whole military side of things it is easier to swallow.

Others have said it, but this should be in Romance, not LW.

Lots of sound. Lots of fury. Little man.

Painfully well written. Great story. But I just can't like the protagonist. And the sisters? The less said the better.

I understand the high scores and positive reviews. I wanted to write one. But it's missing the lead's metamorphosis by about 24 hours.

I'm not Tim. Only carvohi knows how Tim thinks and reacts to his reality. But I can speculate how a typical man might react when he discovers that most of the pain, anxiety, fear and self loathing he experienced through middle and high school was intentionally inflicted by the despicable manipulations of Amber and Darla. Even a timid soul like Tim just might reach his limit of humiliation. But a typical guy would be hard pressed not to physically hurt both of them. Short of that, the verbal assault he would inflict would singe their eyebrows. And there would be absolutely no way he would ever again have anything to do with these two evil, selfish, *%@??%%% f'in bitxx's.

Carvohi's character seems to take the whole issue as though it was of no particular consequence. I have nothing but pity for Tim and given what kind of person Amber is, he'll regret his "heroic" intervention at the wedding for the rest of his miserable life with her during their marriage and after she throws him away which is inevitable given her history.

I didn't like any of the main characters. I surely hope I never meet anyone like them.

I was pissed off for the whole story. Good story

Sorry but that really was a tiresome read.

The protagonist not knowing wtf was going on worked when he was a child but from the age of 18 onwards it reached ridiculous proportions.

The characters were unrealistic and the interactions were very stilted.

This was far from the better stories by this writer.

My God! What a story! Thanks

This was a most frustrating story, about a challenged man and two bitches. It annoyed the hell out of me, but l stuck to it. So...

The author did a good job, drawing me into a story l hated but could not put down. I got so angry an frustrated with the characters but l had to see it thru to the end.

I do not want to give you a 5, but l think l have to.

A begrudged 5/5 for an excellent story that got me in. A credit to the author.

You probably already figured out from my previous comments on your other stories, I really enjoy your writing. You're one of the best at walking us readers through the thoughts of a troubled mind, and this story was another classic. That said, I'm dying here wanting to know the "rest of the story". PLEASE finish this tale when you get the chance! 5*

Wow. You kept me guessing which girl it was going to be the whole story. 5*

Just absurd in every way. Other than the old lady, not one redeeming character in the story. He was described as retarded, but every other person thought he had great possibilities & was doing mini-surgeries at end. All others were psychopaths mixed with Jekyll & Hyde. Guy couldn't talk to girl and he ends up a male Marilyn Chambers? And the one who ignored him most, and the most incongruous one, gets the guy? Also, the story telescopes time and events. Just didn't make sense on any level.

Unfortunately too long and wordy

I tend to enjoy stories about damaged people, and in their own way, they were all damaged to some degree. He had a brain injury of sorts as a child, and the girls were probably worse than him. That level of cruelty at that age is hard to imagine and harder to read. It's also hard to believe that any of them turned the personalities around, which makes me imagine his life going forward is going to be as tough and cruel as ever. That's very sad. Apart from a couple of goofs with foreign phrases, your writing is as great as ever.

Thank you, sir. 5*

Wargamer

My thoughts exactly, I thought the dialog meandered though but it was thought provoking and interesting how only one person took real sympathy on him. Unlike his "aunt and uncle (mostly uncle)". Please continue writing.

Uugghh good plot idea technically well written. Main character had a very difficult life that was expressed very well. Imperfect characters ranged from horrible humans to the sympathetic old woman. 2 stars because it was so long slow and no major action or drama to hold my interest.

OK to be truthful I jumped from page to to page 9 and could not see a reason to go back and read the skipped pages.

Enjoyable. Thank you for your efforts

I really enjoyed this story. Keep up the good work! 5 stars

I was never injured but I grew up in the foster system with pretty much the same shitty treatment that Timmy got so I had plenty of resentment. I was always the good guy, the 'sucker' who got taken advantage of, like he was. After I got out of the Army, I got married to a girl with a great body who was as dumb as a box of rocks because her widowed mother was built just like her and was as sharp as razor. I let her move in with us and she was too embarrassed to tell anyone when I started fucking her. When my wife finally found out, her mother begged her not to do anything because she'd been letting me fuck her and her friends would think she was a slut. I have the best of it, now. My wife tries to fuck me better than her mother and her mother, having accepted that she's my pussy and likes being fucked by her daughter's husband, tries to fuck me better than her daughter does. I treat them both like they're the best thing that ever happened to me and they're happy. Her mom got pregnant first but I had two children with each of them.

Thank you for the finely wrought story.

The main character drove the plot. You can see how all the supporting characters were well developed and created a complex life with and around Tim.

You still string together five or ten words where three or four would suffice. But that is part of the charm of a Carvohi 😉.

Who cares about the category.... I give this 5⭐'s.

I'm

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AMerryman

Made me laugh with this line: "I had a real teat a teat with Amber." I started skimming after that, but I did catch how Timmy went from being Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man" to Dustin Hoffman in "The Graduate."

Well, it's fiction and free, so I'm not going to complain too much about the plot holes. But dude, get an editor. If you have one, get another. There's about 5 times a badly hacked phrase just drags you straight out of the story, and it's either laughable or quizzical. He "had a real teat a teat with Amber". Oh dear lord, did they run nipples together? The story deserves better.

What a wonderful ending. Think this tops the wonderful ending of "A Simple Case Of Infidelity" from 2015. Carvohi is one of the finest we have. Simply beautiful. Particularly noteworthy is how the MC narrator shows the kind of language difficulties he announced he has at the outset, and yet those difficulties never confuse the reader (or, at least, this reader).

It couldn't end any other way. I loved it. Kind of long, but worth the read.

Disappointing ending, I kept hoping that he would move on rather than waste his life on one of those bitches.

Hi! It's me carvohi.

I thought the title, "Once Upon a Time in Emmittsburg" sort of gave the whole story away. This is a fairytale; a boy from a disadvantaged background with physical disabilities meets two pretty girls, he falls in love, works hard, perseveres, and gets his heart's desire. Were the girls bitches? They were rich. Nothing short of disease or some severe accident could threaten them, still both girls hung around with a what most people thought was a loser. They, along with Mrs. Grummond helped build the boy into a man. What's to be disappointed about?

What if there was a sequel? What might Darla do? Think of her poor husband. Would Tim continue to have sexual congress with Darla? Would he contribute to her husband's unhappiness? What abut Amber? Would she tire of Tim? Would she step out of line? Would he accept it? What if she stayed faithful? What if they had a dozen kids?

carvohi

This is not a criticism of anyone's comment. It is a few things that might invite readers to consider what might yet happen?

The world is a very funny place.

A 5-star masterpiece about which I commented 4 days ago. But had to reply to carvohi here - with all due respect, this is perfect as it is. Please, no sequels. Tim doesn't mess around with Darla. Now that Tim is going from strength to strength, he'll be able to keep up with Amber. A dozen kids, though, is possible. Keep the fairytale alive!

Very nice. Not LW material but wonderful nonetheless.

At times things were all over the place but finally it was OK. 5*

Reasonable story,but too much trivia for it to be classed as good.

This is a great story. But probably belongs in the Romance genre rather than LW. The story is well crafted and well written. There were a couple of typo's but nothing that detracted from the excellent storyline.

Just going to check to see if there's a follow up. I think it deserves at least that.

Really I would have liked Tim to end up with both Darla and Amber and I had hoped that was where it was going. After all both Darla and Amber were in love with Tim and equally Tim was in love with both of them. Given that Darla did love Tim it's very unlikely that her marriage would survive for too many years. She would probably end up being jealous of Amber being with Tim and that would result in resentment towards her husband. so maybe there is a LW story here to be told?

This was not what I expected. What a wonderful story. I was rooting for Amber all along. The character development was deliciously carried out. Was Amber actually a virgin on her wedding night? I wonder.

I'm left to wonder whether the sisterly competition will continue after marriage?

This was your best Sir! Congratulations on a tale that is more suited for a quality literary magazine that paid you for your efforts. Thank you!

I do take exception to how your teachers treated him in school. All of the teachers I ever worked with in my 40 yr. career, or that Worked with my autistic son were nothing but caring and willing to go the extra mile, especially the special Ed staff and their support network. I take exception enough to speak up, but this is fiction, and it really contributed to your tale, so I still gave you your six stars.

A wonderful story and based in my own back yard! How nice to read something and know ALL of the places mentioned. I was curious how the story was going to end up and I was not disappointed!

Very great work. I love the development of characters and the progreso that they made. It was truly brilliantly written.

A marvelous telling! Great characters! Tim, the greatest of all! A regular Chief Bromden--who slowly comes out of the shadows cast upon him and awakens to himself and his possibilities!

Bored and gave up by page 4

Why would ANYONE be rooting for any of these cruel and heartless harpies? Tim was abused for his entire life. Abused and manipulated but ohh it was for his own good? He was autistic for fucks sake. They don't grasp social cues. This isn't a romance. It's fucking horrible and it's absolutely shocking that so many of you buffoons, don't get it. -starsong1977.

Couldn't get past the diaper. But FYI to improve future writing:

“I had a real teat a teat with Amber.” téte-a-téte

“… he just didn't have your suave affair.” savoir faire

Both of these could have been jokes, but the writing was not sophisticated enough that I thought so. If they were, you should have given a clue.

One of the best ever

The actress who played Peter Pan was Maude Adams, with an "e."

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I don't know why the girls kept calling him stupid, the way they yanked him around how was he supposed to know what to think?

How did Tim complete his active duty and not know what he was trained for?

As always, Excellent.

Excellent story, as always.

Fantastic, I don’t know what else to say. I didn’t know what was going to happen until the last paragraph. Thank you, great story. KS

What a couple of fucked up bitches. I see black clouds in Timmy's future.

An excellent story. A well told ugly-duckling to swan story. The way you wrote about Tim's experiences, the discrimination, the hardships he faced, tugged at my emotional heart-strings. I really cared about him. I love the character of Pauline Grummond. She showed true compassion, love and patience. I really appreciated the recommendation of this story. Thank-you.

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Pasqual

Painful. Tugs at the heartstrings. A bit too long but that was part of the agony.

I hated it, so I gave it 5 *. Seriously, you really don't want to root for the guy, but then you do. Jed does it again.

A strange but interesting story - it kept my attention for 9 pages.

A few bits of comic relief:

...Suave fair? Did you mean "savoir faire"?

...Teat a teat? Did you mean "tit to tit" or "tete-a-tete"?

...Nuevo-riche? Did you mean "nouveau riche"?

(Don't fire your editor, they did an admirable job! Such boo-boos make me smile and are the essence of Lit stories.)

Thank you, carvohi.

Keep 'em comin'.

Huh?

I enjoy reading well written, long stories - I'm finding that this tale hit the spot on a weekend where I just want to escape my daily grind. It borders on the absurd, but that is what I find so interesting (the author is weaving a tale he worked out after some considerable time and thought).

Again, you have to be careful of this error;

"Waiting long," she asked? It should be: "Waiting long?" she asked. The Question mark has to be attached to the actual question, not your comment.

Began well. Strange ending.

I really enjoyed this.

Simon_Masters

So Darla cheated on her fiance... Wonder how that marriage will with out? And Amber needs him to man up but if she played him for long without telling him what she needed or wanted how is marriage gonna work? Want kids? Wait 15 years dropping hints that point to the exact opposite ... Not happy with something? Test him like crap and find someone to date until he gets it... Bizarre story but it did kurti my attention and I enjoyed it despite my comments above.

Fuck me, what a great read⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Fuck me, what a great read⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It sure held my attention but this is some strange story. 5*

Wonderful story, thank you for sharing.

I think this must be one of your best stories, if not the very best!

For those of us who grew up across the street from the Westinghouse plant, (in whichever suburb of Pittsburgh it was located), this could have been written by SO Many of us!

For me it was Braddock Ave, circa 1950. One word accurately describes my take on this story: Authentic!

Definitely created flashbacks to my pre-teen years...

One of my favorite authors hit a grand slam with this one. What a great story. What a helluva ending.

"I know what love is...", forrest gump. (Mrs. Grummond)

5 stars

I finally got thru it all. Basically you write the same story over and over -- at least the same kind of men and women protagonists. Just the overall circumstances and names change. At least every one of your stories I've read. Your male MCs are all kind of "secretly strong" but outwardly weak and basically passive-aggressive. Your female MC's the same in reverse - outwardly strong but secretly weak/insecure. No wonder so much "miscommunication" is going on in your tales.

But kudos for this one for the obvious riffing off of "Great Expectations" by Dickens and the various movie treatments. I personally like the 1998 Gwyneth Paltrow version.

Don't know if anyone else caught this, I've read some comments but not all of them.