All Comments on 'Pauline'

Fun read. Bit of a fairy tale but that's OK.

I agree with the “Bond. Jason Bond” comment. I thought the same thing myself. But then I wondered if the Mexican brewery knew if Q was writing about their guy, The Most Interesting Man In The World. But more importantly, I couldn’t help but wonder if JPB knew Q was going to kill off Pauline French when he gave him the ‘thumbs up’ for him to use her in a story. I really liked the story, though, it was entertaining as anything I’ve read in a while, and more than most. So thanks,

Q, for a story about a Most Interesting Man. ;-)

Five (5) stars.

Dee

Damn Q, I've read thousands of books, owning many but your stories top nearly all. For freely shared tales I am always in awe at the variety of topics, the depth of knowledge, and the humor you flavor your stories with. You rightly have many glowing comments commending you (justly deserved). I have very little patience with the petty detractors though. You leave me jealous ; wishing I could write nearly as well. Thank you for your tales Q.

somewhere east of Omaha

Being along time JPB (and Pauline) fan this tale added to the normal Q attraction!

somewhere east of Omaha

This story reads like a 12year old wrote it, seriously. Dont write about things you you have zero clue about ie: high sociaty, business it all came out like a child trying to impress with no idea what they are talking about. Sad really, and the first fight over saying mother inlaw, seriously just a crapilly writen story .

Delightful, humorous, charming and somewhat heartbreaking as it went on. Too bad Pauline was a fool, she could have had a happy, fulfilling life if she had grown up.

Wow, fourteen days ago a gutless anonymous said that this “very well put together” story sounded like it was written by a twelve year old. The person must be very jealous of your story telling skills. I really liked this story along with many others you have so graciously offered to share with us. Like Boston to Birmingham and 500 Annies. Some very fine shorter stories to. People like gutless anonymous should appreciate the fact that, for the most part, this site has short stories, not novels. And the stories satisfy the reader in a short timeline. I like that and so do a lot of other people that read these “sometimes less than perfectly researched” gems. Kept up the good work and let that imagination of yours share more of you with us.

This was a really good story the only complaint was the lack of exposition regarding Pauline and her condition. She was almost guaranteed to be suffering from nymphomania and yes it's a real condition. As you can imagine the root cause is nothing to do with her narcissistic tendencies and spoiled rich girl syndrome. Atypically it's about a lack of self esteem and self worth. And commonly brought about by child abuse I know some of you are like whatever. But in all seriousness it's extremely well diagnosed and very well researched because it's way to common. 1 in 3 girls/women have been victims of sexual abuse so laugh all you want but for a young girl there is literally no greater destroyer of your sense of self than to be violated like that and almost invariably it was done by a relative.

Decent story.

I understand some of the criticism. I don't know anything about the fashion industry, but I do know about golf: Jason should have been astonished (or at least extremely pleased) to hit a hole in one. It's more a matter of luck than skill (though skill doesn't hurt). Worse yet, Jason doesn't know how to spell the name of the school he went to. Eaton is a department store; Eton is the famous college.

The author has many excellent stories, but he sometimes uses words that he hasn't seen in writing.

The author is as pretentious as he is ignorant: there is no such thing as a 4 star Michelin restaurant, the maximum number of stars is 3.

Well done.

'F style Jaguar.'???

The actual name would be 'F-type' Jaguar!

I just read some of the nit-picking comments below. I can sympathize because my knowledge of so many different specialties makes it harder to enjoy some stories, but I don’t usually comment on the mistakes unless it’s very bad.

An excellent story with few mistakes and a smooth storyline.

Bill S.

Don't do this to us -- don't make stories that cannot be put down -- we have chores. We have duties. We can't just read your stories. So I tell myself. Wonderful.

Interesting story though Jason came off as too "perfect". I have read the JPB stories with Pauline French. She certainly came off as self destructive in those stories. But was said to see that she woukd again destroy her love life / marriage with serial cheating. Really odd that in her conversation with another at a restaurant she dispassionately talks about cooling it off, then starting it back up, and going til when she wants to get pregnant. Meanwhile saying Jason was a "good lover". Odd since it seemed like earlier in the story he was absolutely peeling her off the ceiling and she wanted to marry him almost immediately. That speaks to a powerful attraction / spark that leads to awesome sex. There is no way she gets that from fucking a stranger. That sort of spark or chemistry is rare. So yeah seems like she is basically stuck on "cutting herself" thus destroying any positive romantic relationship. But we never learn why. Story was well written. Would have been just as happy if Pauline had not cheated (repeatedly) but they had some other turmoil to over come. Good story but Jason was "perfect" and everyone prophesied Pauline being a heartbreaker.

I have to agree with other comments the protagonist was just too perfect, Almost made me sick. I was waiting for the angels to come on the 3rd day and roll away the stone .... ha ha ha. I also noticed in this story he never really DID anything that made him wonderful. It was just said, he did this and said he he we good at that did that. There wad no real background on him, More at the end and the beginning of the story?

The be honest halfway through the story I was rooting for the girl to cheat on him find a real human and was glad when she did. I thought you really missed an opportunity to never explore why the woman cheated? In reality that was the whole build up and point of this story! I know it's hard to come up with something creative why not just try and give some reasoning and explanation why would have make the story really good.

Congratulations! I do believe that you are the first writer to completely knock me out of a story with a single word. The story wasn't the best, but was flowing decently until I got to the word "imitative" in a place it had no business being. I'm completely flummoxed as to what word you actually meant to use and why you accepted that suggestion from your spell checker.

I thought when I read all the perfect stuff about the male M/C it was an image designed to make a statement. The statement was that Ms French was so screwed up that she would cheat on this image. It was also designed to portray an extension of JPB character that was so gotten and disturbed that no redeeming value existed. The final blow was her being a victim of cheating and dying alone. She was very sick mentally but deserved her ending…

You won't read nitpicky comments designed to show you how smart I think I am in the following. What you will read is honest appreciation for a well crafted story. It is rare to find a story that contains characters that live in a world that I don't, that I can still identify with. Your characters are well formed and have depth. Whether I like them as people is irrelevant. The fact that I formed a strong opinion about them proves you did a great job.

Much like real life, not everyone wins. I was pleased at the ending, not because it was happy, but because I was rooting for them to reconnect and find the happiness I felt they both deserved. Well done and thank you for sharing.

Very Good !

Q! You just keep hitting ‘em outa the park.

Ok, we’ll shorten this to 10 outa 5.

On to da next…. And then

This was well written and I give it 5 stars. However I just don't like the main character. It reminds me of a Burt Reynolds movie where the guy is exceedingly cool and can do no wrong and everyone either adores or likes him. Now if Bob had been the MC then this would've been exceptional.

Another great story, love the foreshadows and plot twists. Pauline's infidelity was too predictable - almost would have preferred her death in an accident before the first incident. A clean break! Still great read, just sad it had to be infidelity.

Jesus H. Christ. My heart can't take stories like this too often. But thank you (from what's left of it) for this one.

MLJ

I really don't think it's polite to borrow another writer's character and then kill her. Shame on you.

Awesome take on the perils of Pauline… buuut, you killed her off?? An awesome Gilf she woulda been

DAMN IT!

I stumbled on this tale while reviewing some of my favorite Authors. I hate long tales. However, having said that this one earned every bit of the Outstanding Read ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating I gave. I wanted to rate it at least twice that.

I knew after the first 3 pages I could not give this tale anything less than the highest rating available. Then the dang tale got even better. You built the characters in your tale with such beauty and grace you had to love the ability to hate some of them.

While I personally wanted Pauline to stay with Jason, I so enjoyed the tale you wrote and the path you made each person’s journey. I was so emotionally tied to each person and enjoying the flow you created, I got lost inside the imagery. The way you built the bonds with Rob and Monica made it even better for my consumption.

Giving Rob an interaction fishing with his daughter was a great moment for me. Having tie-in with empty nest and reaching into the emotional reconnection was brilliant for me.

The kicker which made me believe this should be one of the greatest reads on this site was the ending epilogue. It allowed everyone including Pauline to have LWL (Life Well Lived). While Pauline may have experienced the loss she gave others. To me she still had a LWL. It should really be rated at MOST OUTSTANDING READ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thanks for sharing this wonderful work for our consumption.

Keep Writing

JH4Fun

Just couldn't be arsed to waste the time trying to get into it. The first page just didn't grab the attention and skipping further nothing hooked. Sry but not your best by a long chalk.

2023.08.23

An okay read but by far not your best work. Was particularly offended by you killing off Pauline. Rather presumptuous don't you think?

Doc

In my opinion, the characters are superb or manipulative.

What JH4Fun said. Absolutely brilliant.

May not be the best but definitely one of the best of the best. Great story line and fantastic characters.

Well written and a tragic story.

Thoroughly enjoyable. Well written characters that I felt invested in. Always a sign of a good story when that happens. Thanks for this BardnotBard

It was Sherrie not Gina who hooked up with Bob after Pauline did her runner in Michigan.

Amazing!

5 Stars on such a great story . Yes I did get moved by it at times

A truly great story by a gifted writer!!! I loved it and give it 5 stars, for sure.

Brilliant; I just loved St. Andrews!

Once again wonderful. Sad that there are so many men and women that are self destructive in their relationships.

RIP, Pauline…

JBP himself couldn't have done any better. Thanks.

Quite a story even having read it before. Ah, the life of the rich and famous and there loves also. Remember you never getting out of this life alive......................

5 Stars on a great story . I went to school with a girl named Pauline French . She is in her 50's and a little older then Me . I always tell her about any Pauline French story I have ever read . She laughs about the stories with her name in them as does her husband .

Being self destructive and afraid of 'real life' are two very different things. The former is something you do to yourself the latter is relative to your wealth. The real life of a poor person living paycheck to paycheck is not and can never be equated to the real life of the independently wealthy who will never have to do anything that they don't want to, up to and including carrying and giving birth to their biological children.

'Real life' is a stupid concept thrown around by those that haven't got a clue that the world is bigger and more varried than they can ever possibly imagine.

Found it really difficult to give a shit about the MC and the rest of them. They weren't particularly great people and it was more than obvious that he had feelings for his assistant that he shouldn't have, and no doubt that relationship went some way to poisoning the well.

It's all well and good to place the sole blame on the offending party, and no doubt her behaviour was unacceptable, but she didn't get there without the help of the MC... and we're never gou gnto know what that was because he's the narrator and is hardly going to confess to being a shit. Even if he does hang around people like models who are the lowest of the low. As they say, if you roll around in a pigsty, expect to smell like shit

In my opinion your writing is a level above most of the writers who try to write on here. I thought the early interaction between the mc and the spoilt rich girl was classic.

A tale by basically the three finest minds on Lit (Q, JPB and Randi) - how can that be topped? Thank you Q. 5 stars

somewhere east of Omaha

Excellent use of the Pauline French character. I don't really understand how the MC could fall for Pauline, but it is fiction. Well written.

5 Stars on this one as again I have read it . Having gone to school with a girl named Pauline French I get a kick out of these stories . I have let her know about these stories . To be honest My wife has let her know as they are Great friends

Thanks for an extremely well-written filled with powerful emotion. I found both plot and character development to be believable attention holding. Great work!

This damn author stirring up all this dust. I can hardly see, my eyes are watering so bad. Pretty sad ending watching a family die. My wife passed 5 years ago lying in bed beside me. She had been given 6mo to live she lasted eight. She came to after being out for a couple weeks and told me "I love you", there goes that dust again. She passed a few hours later. Never knew what love was until I met her some 40 years ago. Be sure and cherish the ones you love and care for, as you never know what tomorrow may bring.

5/5. My first thoughts were the Pauline character was on display and trial. Jason was portrayed as he had to be to demonstrate how out of kilter she was. She couldn't stay stable/faithful to a man who was godlike in his life's mission. That in itself must illuminate her totally destructive self.. My second thought was she was not tragic in any way but instead a qusi-sociopath that had practically no morals or conscience. "She dictated to Jason and others what was going to happen. She never indicated she didn't want kids. She was never good or honest and Jason was extremely fortunate to have great friends and Marta. Finally the story was very well and orderly written by one of my favorite writers. I imagine your "friends' make the work quite better, however the writing is still very top shelf. TFS.

~A very strange story, very well-told.

It was a fun story and I enjoyed it. The rich elitist setting is not my thing. Felt the cheating woman was more realistic and likable than Mr. Perfect. LOL

Oh, boy, can you write!!! I loved this story and don't stop writing such amazing works. The characters stay with me after I've read the story. It reminds me your "I'm 51" which I loved so much too. Thank you!!!!!

What an awesome story! THANK you for sharing!

Even after several reads, still a wonderful story... thank you.

Second read. Still enjoyable. Pauline was a fun character to hate.