Details

  • Last Online: Feb 28, 2023
  • Location:
  • Contribution Points: 0 LV0
  • Roles:
  • Join Date: August 9, 2022
Romance Is a Bonus Book korean drama review
Completed
Romance Is a Bonus Book
0 people found this review helpful
by wisteriauroras
Aug 10, 2022
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 8.0
Story 8.0
Acting/Cast 9.5
Music 7.5
Rewatch Value 7.5

A beautiful drama of resiliency, friendship, second chances, love, and family.

I'm honestly surprised by how much I liked this drama. I have put off watching this for so long since I've read several reviews saying this is disappointing so I never felt like it was the right time to watch. But one random day of missing seeing Lee Jong Suk in a drama, I finally decided to give this a try and I didn't regret every second I spent watching this. It was actually a beautiful drama of resiliency, friendship, second chances, love, and family.

The top reason why I loved this is the book references. As a huge bookworm, it's definitely a big plus for me! The story was mainly set in a publishing company and it was absolutely nice to see and witness the process of creating books from the first manuscript until it reach the bookshelves.

Most of the characters were really well written, especially the side characters. I loved how they weren't just bland characters inserted to complement the leads, each of the characters were given a distinguishing personality and their own storyline, even.

More than the leads, my favorite character was actually Song Hae Rin. She's an editor who works with the leads and she's just a literal angel. I love how she isn't written as the typical second lead who falls for the male lead then decides to make things hard for the female lead just to get back at her. She's a passionate, goal-driven, warm-hearted person and I just love her so much.

Meanwhile, I do love the relationship between the leads and how they transitioned from long-time friends to lovers. It gradually and slowly developed so for me, nothing felt forced. Knowing and understanding their history, everything felt natural to me, like things were just meant to happen. I loved how mature and domestic their relationship is. It felt so stable and seeing them just felt peaceful. Individually though, their characters aren't that remarkable.

Kang Dan-i, the female lead, was introduced so strongly. She made me cry in the first episode, in fact. A divorcee and a single mother trying to regain her place in the world no matter how much the world rejects her. In the latter episodes though, this image wasn't maintained when she got too caught up with the romance. She doesn't even remember to mention or call her child. That detail really annoyed me. Cha Eun Ho, Lee Jong Suk's character, as swoon-worthy as he is, didn't really live to his full potential. He was veiled with mystery with so much potential in the beginning but I'm not very satisfied with how everything unfolded. I felt like it could've been so much better. We didn't even get a scene of him in his full elements as a writer. I wanted to see his character in his writing process so bad. Instead, he was just referred to as a bestselling author, receiving the highest royalties from their publishing company. Although when picturing it in general, the development of the characters of the support roles kinda make up for it.

The acting was phenomenal, though. Even small scenes of support roles with filler scenarios make me tear up because it was executed so well.
Was this review helpful to you?