How Could You Cry for Me? - Comments

Sorry that this review took way too long to get to you. Been having personal real-life issues. :3 Well here it is!

Layout: Very simple, but I love it. Very awesome.

Title: Not much to say, it's very nice though.

1/1: My favorite kind of character: a bitter, yet sad one. Amazing writing, I love how you word things. The description of how he loved his daughter and wife almost made me tear up. You can just feel the love he had for him. It was sort of bitter sweet, as everything being written in past-tense explained that they were gone. I feel bad for this man, how he has to fake his way through life, pretending to be okay and happy. Your writing really makes me feel for him. I love your use of repetition. God, this is just so sad. I mean, it's really good, but the situation he is in sad. It's beautiful. I really liked it, bravo. :3

So what I'm getting so far is that the protagonist -- a male -- has had something terrible happen to him. It's a little unclear but I want to know what it is that is 'a living nightmare' and something that people don't often go through. He sounds lonely and depressed, and that's all I know about his character so far. I think this is one of those stories where you don't need to know much about the lead character, though.

I have so many questions running through my mind as I'm reading this. What's happened? His daughter and wife, something's happened to them. The description of his daughter makes me want to tear up -- I think I might, maybe. So they're dead, both of them, and I understand now why he's in despair.

I can definitely relate to the story, which must be why I got so emotional while reading it, but I wanted to tell you that you have a gift for writing. It was almost poetic. Your words are crafted perfectly and run smooth, it feels as though you didn't even have to try at all. The story left me naked and upset and aware, the way you feel when you take up too much time thinking and dissecting something that bothers you. That's not a bad thing at all.

One small mistake I noticed: "his ever movement and his every thought"

Other than that, you're good to go, and the read was worth it. The layout was lovely too, but the story overpowered it. I really enjoyed it:-)

I love how simple this layout is! I'm always a sucker for layouts like this; I can totally tell Brooke made it because of the wood background, hahah! I'm loving the layout and the tiny summary. c: Moving onto the review!

So I noticed that you have a bloody knack for writing gorgeous one-shots that make me want to cry. Cry because they are beautiful and cry because I'm jealous of your writing abilities. You describe a man doing the most mundane thing in the world - reading the newspaper and drinking black coffee - and even that comes off as beautiful. It's crazy D:

Anyways, I feel bad for this poor man, how he has to put up this false, happy smile as people comforted him. He seems very broken and distrusting of the world, it seems, that took away his wife and child. :(

For a second, I thought he was having a heart attack or something because of all this stress in his life. You really make the reader feel everything that this man is feeling, from the memories that he shared with his wife and daughter, to how their looked to him, and how he's attempting to bravely move on from this tragedy.

Your repetition of "adorable" and "how could they?" works so well here. Once again, it really shows how trapped he is in these memories and how he, almost, doesn't want to let them go and let anyone into his life because of their false sympathy. This is beautifully tragic. (I'm probably rambling, so please excuse me >_<)

Anyways, I really enjoyed this, though I can imagine that my comment made little sense. This is such a sad piece, but nonetheless, beautiful. Like I said, you have a knack for writing these lovely one-shots and I'm jealous. Lovely job, lady! <3

It's so full of emotion.
Like, holy crap.

Oh wow, you sure are descriptive! I don't know how you can be so good at that o.0 I wish I was that good! >.<

I really do love this story, and I can't really think of anything that I would change. Huh. That's a good thing though XD

This was so sad. So, so sosoosososososooo sad. I'm trying hard not to cry. I can really see this happening. And this is what I think would happen if... if his wife and kid died... but that won't ever happen D': Ugh, I'm tearing up.

This is beautifully written. Great job.

I'm crying. This is absolutely heartbreakingly beautiful. Words can not express how much I love this piece.

The way that Gerard's mourning over the death of his wife and young daughter is done so well. I honestly thought right up until the ending that they'd died recently and that he was only just starting to try and move on with his life. But he'll never move on with his life and you've made this really clear. He's like a broken record with the way he has to read over the same little article and replay the same memories over in his mind over and over again.

Honestly Rachel, I'm in tears over this one. It's just amazing and incredible.
The emotion has washed over me like a shower.
You're amazing.

I think it was quite evident, upon my first reading of this, that you know what you're doing when you're writing. You seemed to have put a lot of thought behind every phrase, and you may have been doing it for a while. It really shows.

One thing I noticed from the very beginning is the repetition of "they had no clue," and I thought it was a good running theme to base the whole thing off. It's essentially an introspective piece, filled with regret and nostalgia and and longing, and it's interesting how we always say that "misery loves company", but once people say they "understand our pain" we become defensive and lash out because we think what we're going through is unique and no one else has any idea. It's a nice observation of the human condition.

Another thing I noticed though, is how you kept repeating the same adjective for his daughter: "adorable" and I can't really tell if you're doing it for emphasis or otherwise. It was a tired word by the end of it. I also think, and don't take this wrongly, that your description of happy thoughts and love wasn't as convincing as the gloom and doom bits. Maybe that's just your niche. I didn't get as sucked in the parts where he was remembering his wife/daughter as when he was wallowing in sorrow. Or maybe that says more about me than it does about your writing. Another little critic is that you can get incredibly verbose at times, and I would love to see what you'd come up with if it was a little more stripped down, more emotion than description.

At the end, I think you wrapped it up quite well, even if we - including the narrator - were back where we started. There was no resolution, but that was life, sometimes.

I'm commenting as I read and I'm only on the second paragraph and I feel speechless. Obviously, I'm not literally "speechless" as I'm commenting right now, but you get the idea. You have some of the most unique phrases and sentences that I've read in a long, long time.

Facing the false bravado of sympathy was bad, the real sympathy, on the other hand, was unbearable.
This was brilliant. You conveyed such a complex mix of emotions and feelings in a simple sentence, whereas most people would've gone on for paragraphs. I think that's what I love most about your writing: you're very concise and to-the-point. There's no beating around the bush, which I'm a fan of because A) you take us through the story in an easier way, and B) you don't waste the readers' time.

Now ingrained on the insides of his eyelids, they would play torturing him every flicker of an eyelid, every drop of an eyelash and all night as he’d sleep; once for every time his heart would beat alongside a familiar pang of hopelessness and loss.
One of my favorite passages from this. I feel so sorry for this poor man and I can't imagine the pain he must be feeling, but you do an amazing job at making sure I can feel alllllmost what he must be feeling. It's brilliantly done. I love how he outwardly acts so confident and strong, yet he's so breakable on the inside.

I also love the comparison with death as this sort of thief. I just got done reading The Book Thief for the first time a few weeks ago and I can almost picture the same visualization of Death personified in your story, as this man who walks around picking up souls, some of which "don't belong to him" yet, but he feels obligated to take them anyway.

What I think I really love most of all is the ambiguousness of this; it could be about anybody. There are no names, no overbearing physical descriptions, not even an explanation of how the mother and daughter passed. It's like a challenge to the reader to think of it what they will, and that's something I always love seeing in stories. You pull it off so well here.

I'm just seriously in love with this, and with your writing. You're amazingly talented and brilliant :D etc. I loved every moment of reading this.

This made me sad, happy, angry and almost calm; all the at same time. I like how when you write you use 'big words' (for lack of a better explanation), yet still seem to make it all flow together. He thinks too much.

It's just such an intense piece, but, is as simple as him sitting down drinking a cup of coffee. It makes me think of sitting in a coffee shop, thinking about how to kill someone, and just sipping your coffee. On the outside, you look like just another normal person, while on the inside, it's quite the different story.

I don't know, I just really liked this piece.

Wow. I can't even describe how beautiful this whole story was, in an infinite and haunting way. Your wording all flowed together so seamlessly and perfectly that it was as though I was looking on at this man and feeling his pain. I love the way you related death to a thief; through those sentences you stole what I've never been able to put into words and managed to do it in an incredible fashion. The whole story is intellectual and I can feel the maturity in your writing, and honestly, my heart lurched for him. The way you described the girls made them seem like his angels, and in the end I didn't know whether I'd rather him be alive or in death with a possibility to be with them again. That may be sick, but his pain was so fierce that it blew me away.

He hoped they’d all choke.
^^That was my favourite line. While it wasn't as perfectly structured as the other ones, it was so powerful and shocking and pretty much summed up his character and his life for me.

I loved this story a lot and I'm subscribing so that I can come back and re-read it later. <3

I have a thing for wooden backgrounds. They happen to be one of my favorite things :D

He couldn’t leave the house, nor could he stay locked inside – he couldn’t breathe. Then, he gasped, clutching at his chest as a sharp pain tore through the area he recognised his heart to occupy. He could practically feel the blood seeping through his shirt, splattering little scarlet stars across the dove-white lino floor.
This was the paragraph to really pull me in. I sat there for a second and had to go back and re-read it to figure out what was going on, then I got that whole “ahhhhh” sort of thing. Haha. It’s really brilliant and klajgjdh it’s amazing.

It may once have been, but it could be no more – death was no friend of his. It held no allure, no beauty any longer. It was a thief, it was cruel, and it was heartless.
Whoa. That’s really a perspective way of thinking about it. And I think it’s just awesome on your part as the writer for putting in this realization. He went from wanting suicide, wanting this death, to a point where he sees how truly awful and relentless it is. I love it.

I think this piece is beauitful. It reminds us of priorities and really thinking about our lives and what’s there and what’s not, and the line:
It was then he realised the lack of meaning his life held, he just wasn’t sure what he was living for, but he wasn’t sure what was worth dying for either.
Is absolutely amazing.

This is truly brilliant and you are so talented! <3

Honey, you could give J.K Rowling a run for her money! All i can say is amazing! You really inspire me!

The first sentence completely drew me in to the story.And then the first paragraph - jesus it's good.
I love the imagery you've used and the way your descriptions have been written completely draw me in and make me want to read more of your stuff.

Those two girls were his world, his entirety, his very being. That line is my favourite. It's a simple thought but the way you've written it is like fnsdjkgbdsjkgblsdhjk amazing.

You're a fantastic writer and anyone who doesn't think so, well I shall slap them across the face as hard as I can. Forrealz.

This was written beautifully. my favorite.

He snorted bitterly into his coffee. Lies: every little bit of happiness, every little smile, every monotonous lecture about positivity, about optimism. All lies. Facing the false bravado of sympathy was bad, the real sympathy, on the other hand, was unbearable. Dear God, they never stopped. The glances; tears; pats on the back. They had no clue; how could they?

It meant so much to read that, and it had so much emotion it was beautiful. You have a talent that is beyond my own and you surpass so many other. The layout is cute ;3, and the paragraph set up is perfect.

YOU go around going all "you're a good writer" and then I come to read THIS?
It's been way too long since I've read something from you, way longer than it should've been. But believe you me, this definitely satisfied my Rachel fix.

As everyone else say, this is goddamn brilliant. I mean, yeah this is Mibba, to be honest this place is filled with sad stories about girls who got cheated on and then the boy dies, but I mean... this is just heartbreaking. Honestly, but in that way where, it's so much more because he hardly even admits it. He sort of grips onto this dark humour and sort of laughs at himself from the shadows about who he is, and the nothingness he's become. And because of that, it's just so tragic.

But from what I can tell, it sort of fits this personality you've created. This man who was strong and feigns this power, like when he was a teenager and then his wife came and fixed things. And I honestly could just picture him so easily in my mind with his coffee just sitting there... doing nothing.

He sounded like a mad man but the heavens knew he felt like one.
Seriously, I didn't know which line to quote because I could pick out so many, but I don't know, I just loved that one.

AND MY FAVOURITE, ABSADIDDLY PART, had to be when he talks about suicide. It's just a unique outlook on it that you know that I just had to write about it because I adored it. I mean, most people that commit suicide do it because someone else did, but the fact that the reason he won't do it because he wants to at least live with the memories- damn, girl, you've outdone yourself.

Seriously.

You need to do this writing thing more often and give me something to fangirl over. :D

First thoughts; Both you and Brookie are amazing - it's legit.<3 (:

His coffee, now a dangerous shade of black was darker, tainted – much like his twisted humour saw his soul to be.

This line just seems to sum up the whole attitude of a writer to me, aha. It's just the whole idea of comparing a soul to coffee. I liked this line the bestest.<3

As quickly as she’d come, she fixed him. Fixed him as if all he’d needed was a magic word or a key to a lock.

<333333 x a freaking bajillion, aha.<3

No, they were gone and they were never coming back.

): </3 d'awww.
break my heart why don't you?): </3

This, in all honesty Rachel, was heart breaking and brilliant. I wish I could tell you how much I sincerely enjoyed reading this but I'm afraid I lack the words. This truly was amazing - just perfection, aha. <3

To be frank, this depressed me but it was so fantastic that I recovered instantly.
I felt it, the heart ache and such.
The way you write is actually beautiful and I do generally believe you could make a story out of anything and everything, like pizza for example, and it'd still be wonderful.
Stalking over.
xD

This... this is beautiful.

It's heart-breaking, of course it is.
But the way you show his love for his dead wife and daughter, the way you describe them... it's amazing.
He has nowhere to go, his wife and child - his world, is gone.

Your descriptive skills are immaculate.
And all in all, you're an incredibly talented author. :)

I wanted to annotate this while I was reading, but it captured me and I simply had to go on reading.

Now that I am finished reading, I will say this. Woman, you write wonderfully. Everything flows well when I read it. Your description is impeccable. Your vocabulary is vast, I think. Your sense of emotion is desirable.

These were my favorite paragraphs:

His coffee, now a dangerous shade of black was darker, tainted – much like his twisted humour saw his soul to be. The more he watched the seemingly endless abyss swirl, the more entranced he became. Then, in a bizarre twist of reality, he wondered: what would life be like if he’d slipped by as innocuous as coffee. He let out a dry, scratchy laugh. He sounded like a mad man but the heavens knew he felt like one. He almost wished he were one. Maybe then, only then, he could escape.

Where could he go? He felt trapped, caged, locked up inside a life he no longer wanted to be a part of, his grip on the mug tightened. He couldn’t leave the house, nor could he stay locked inside – he couldn’t breathe. Then, he gasped, clutching at his chest as a sharp pain tore through the area he recognised his heart to occupy. He could practically feel the blood seeping through his shirt, splattering little scarlet stars across the dove-white lino floor. The blood that he knew should be there, that is, if the damage was real as opposed to the artificial wound his subconscious had created – a physical embodiment of the psychological turmoil he was dealing with. - I think the train of thought was amazing. How he wished he were a mad man, and then maybe he could actually escape. And the next paragraph went on to say ‘where would he go’. I liked it. (:

First off, I loved the repetition, the refrain of the line how could they?, because it really brought me back into focus throughout the story. Your description hit amazement level before I even left the first paragraph. It only proves to me how much you've grown since I took my hiatus, and I'm enjoying this new and improved Rachel. (I shall not Nazi this as I have other stories of yours, for I am in absolute love.)

He could practically feel the blood seeping through his shirt, splattering little scarlet stars across the dove-white lino floor.
I love the contrast. Between the blood, obviously representing his anguish, and the dove representing peace. I'm not sure if it was intentional, but it was beautiful.

Fixed him as if all he’d needed was a magic word or a key to a lock.
I like the simplicity of their relationship. That she came in and fixed all of the broken parts.

No, he had her and he’d bring down the heavens if she asked.
I like the devotion. It shows how much he loved her, the extent to which he would go for her. And it's absolutely lovely.

Need I go on about how much I love this? I think you get the gist of it. (: