All Comments on 'Love Notes from Summer Camp'

I’ll be honest I was ready to ditch this story half a page in, due to it reminding me that 30+yrs ago my ex-wife did exactly what “Sarah” did in the story, fwiw it ended in exactly the same way for her as it did Sarah, just without the name calling etc. That said I soldiered on and lo and behold the story turned into one of hope and redemption with a side of humour, I enjoyed nearly all of the story, although sadly as a non-muso those parts left me cold, but that’s entirely on me. One of the high spots of your writing is the great use of vocabulary, but it seemed at odds with the overly frequent curse words and insults, somehow that detracted from the story and left me feeling as if it may have been rewritten by an Editor in places. The real stars however were the girls, just proving the old adage of not working with animals and children. I’m glad I read it through to the end, it was entertaining and enjoyable, your writing flows well and your characters fitted the story well, many thanks for writing and for posting, cheers, Ppfzz. 5⭐️

Nice romance, with a spot of redemption, and the Parent Trap.

I really enjoyed this story of children manipulating their parents, to make sure they stayed connected. Our five daughters kept close eye on our weekly “date night”, making sure we never skipped a week. The kids in this story are beyond wise. Parents screwed up, but all ended happily in love and appreciated. Well done. 5 Stars.

I could have done without the technical music stuff, but extra points for punctuating Hawai’i correctly. Five stars!

Excellent tale - well paced, believably emotional, great understanding of how music and dance creates bridges between people and groups. More similar stories, please!

5* Great read. Could have done away with the MC's name calling however.

Gave it a shot but lost complete interest on page three. Not a fan of dancing and the music choices sucked. Also, I LIKE LIVER! 2*

Clearly you're passionate about music and contradancing. 99% of the readers here are not, so I would have treaded lightly on the detail as it really added nothing to the plotlines beyond a means to bring the two couples together. I know it is under Romance, but a little more detail on Ron and Sarah's marriage imploding would have added more context. Couple places she mentions she was sorry early on but it looks like she wasn't remorseful at all and quickly dumped Ron and moved in with Fucktard - LOL! 4.5*

Sure it was far fetched. A group of super smart conniving kids setting up their parents. Two parents who just happened to be super compatible in music and happen to have super compatible girls who meshed so smoothly in both activities and deviousness. And of course the parents (3 sets who happened to fit together smoothly). So what? It made for a fun read and a novel reading experience. All sorts of imperfect people meshing together in an exciting story that moved smoothly from one subplot to another. I enjoyed it thoroughly (and I don't know anything about the dancing or the piano or the guitar or whatever). Just a story about people having fun and love and family. What more can you ask? 5*

All five stars turned golden...

Strangely, I absolutely enjoy the deep of your interests. There is a geocaching story somewhere in your mind I know it. Loved the four girls and all their loving conniving. Thank you for sharing

two pages in, instant 5 stars merely for the use of the classic insult 'smegma face'. It's now up to the rest of the story to lose those stars. :)

Wow, I haven’t been to a contradance in YEARS! Thanks for that, and also for bringing up memories of home.

While the devious kids were fun, I appreciated how Ron succeeded in his efforts to be a decent person toward his ex for the sake of their daughters. His relationship with Amy was great and the fact that they were trying to move slowly rang true.

I’m looking forward to reading more from you.

This story is neither sexually erotic or romantic in sense of the meanings of those words. Nor is this entertaining in any stretch of the imagination. just a bunch of giberish that has no sexual value at all.

As i’m in The Bay Area and looking to move to either the SJI, Vashon or Bainbridge, this one had me all along. Good story.

Great story!

5

Very interesting story though I have one major beef (and agree with some of the comments above.) People generally do not talk in long, multi sentence paragraphs. They use shorter and even incomplete sentences. Also, conversation means back and forth. He says a little bit about the marriage, she acknowledges with a word or two before he says more. You might try saying your work out loud and you’ll realize how stilted and fake it sounds. Good luck.

Very sweet and hilarious with the insults.

In some ways it reminded me of the old TV show, "The Love Boat" only as a music camp.

"The Love Camp soon will be making another run. The Love Camp promises something for everyone..."

I note the main character has all sorts of vile names for the man his wife was cheating on him with but she was the one actually doing the cheating. Why didn’t she get similar treatment with the naming business?

IT FEELS SO GOOD to read about NICE PEOPLE

BEING NICE WITH EACH OTHER!

Thank you!

What else have you got?

I'm off to find out! :+)))

Nice one.

Excellent!

5*

On top of that, excellent command of grammar!

The GP should have nothing to complain about.

Giving this an over-deserved 4, mainly for Ron, Amy and their girls. But you gave an excruciatingly long description of the dancing and first camp. Also, I agree that Sarah got off too easily and deserved many nasty names for cheating on Ron.

You should have quit at 6 pages

A good story, but long winded, too much detail and after a while the name calling of the ex got a little old. The story could have been more effective in fewer pages. Still, a good tale. Four stars.

JPB

Too long? Too short? Too this or that. Sigh. I’m very happy you wrote this as you did. I enjoyed the dive into contra dancing and music in general. I loved the kids. What fun. I think the ending with everyone getting along was well done. And I applaud you for going there. 5

Unlike many of the commenters, I enjoy reading about little niches of life I know nothing about and have no interest in otherwise. It was a well-told, sweet story that required a little suspension of disbelief, but not too much.

I'm giving this story 4.5 stars - I usually hate reconciliations and forgiveness, but the BRILW for main character was so well done, and the author actually managed to sell me on the remorse from the cheating bitch, at least more so than other authors, that I kind of didn't feel bad about the fact that the bitch got a happy ending too.

/

P.S. Weird. I usually enjoy SOME topics where the author nerds out, but not others, and it's really inconsistent. More weirdly, for someone who actually watches Youtube music theory videos *for fun*, I really didn't like the music nerdery in this story and basically skipped most of it.

You are an excellent narrative writer - you enjoy telling the story. In the long, cold winter nights in Europe, the best seat by the fire was reserved for the storyteller. Don't worry. The man who wrote what is arguably the best novel of the 20th Century was a narrative writer... Tolkien.

The story reminds me of the movie The Parent Trap.

To smooth it out, listen to someone reading it out loud to you, or record yourself reading it and listen to the playback.

I tend to agree that Sarah should have suffered more for the sake of Karma, but I will assume that occurred 'off camera' and still give it 5 stars.

Congratulations.

Terrific. Looking forward to reading the rest of your oeuvre. Easy 5 stars. Also looking forward to your collaboration sound2bay.

Oops. Make that Bay2sound.