This review may contain spoilers
A story about turning darkness into light.
Incredible drama! 9.5/10, or maybe even higher (I certainly plan to watch again, and it's the kind of story that gets even better watching it again knowing the context that is revealed at the end)
What I loved:
--Fun premise (modern girl gets sucked into the game version of a novel by her favorite author)
--Enemies to lovers romance
--Love, love, and more love! this was just such a joyful story from beginning to end. The main character is a source of light and hope for everyone she meets, and it has an enormous inpact--she literally rewrites a dark, depressing novel about secrecy and animosity into a story full of friendship, adventure, and redemption for literally every character.
--broody hero to make anyone swoon. Seriously, his smolder is 10/10
What maybe could have been better, in my opinion (WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW):
--no real kiss for the main couple. Seriously! They are even engaged and have only hugged and held hands. Even at the very end, when they are reunited in the real world, NO KISS. I can respect this narrative choice on the one hand (it does make sense that Ziqi, being at some level hiding his real identity from Miaomiao, would want to wait to kiss her until she knows who he really is and they have a chance to develop a relationship in the real world), but still, I as the viewer DESERVE A KISS, I deserve that closure. There is a sort-of kiss at the end of the credits...but they are clearly working the angles (not an actual kiss), and it was in no way built into the story.
--I would have liked to see more hints about Ziqi's real identity built into the story from the beginning, and I would have liked Miaomiao herself to figure it out. Her character started out with a lot of agency, but by the end I felt like she was turning into kind of just a stand in for "happy character that the male character has to experience character growth in order to earn". This was pretty disappointing to me. It wasn't really egregious--she still is the reason that the world was saved, everyone is brought back to life, and even that Ziqi makes it to the top of that stairway to heaven in order to confront his true self. In other words, still quite a strong FMC...I would just have liked her to be the one who figured out who Ziqi really was.
What I loved:
--Fun premise (modern girl gets sucked into the game version of a novel by her favorite author)
--Enemies to lovers romance
--Love, love, and more love! this was just such a joyful story from beginning to end. The main character is a source of light and hope for everyone she meets, and it has an enormous inpact--she literally rewrites a dark, depressing novel about secrecy and animosity into a story full of friendship, adventure, and redemption for literally every character.
--broody hero to make anyone swoon. Seriously, his smolder is 10/10
What maybe could have been better, in my opinion (WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW):
--no real kiss for the main couple. Seriously! They are even engaged and have only hugged and held hands. Even at the very end, when they are reunited in the real world, NO KISS. I can respect this narrative choice on the one hand (it does make sense that Ziqi, being at some level hiding his real identity from Miaomiao, would want to wait to kiss her until she knows who he really is and they have a chance to develop a relationship in the real world), but still, I as the viewer DESERVE A KISS, I deserve that closure. There is a sort-of kiss at the end of the credits...but they are clearly working the angles (not an actual kiss), and it was in no way built into the story.
--I would have liked to see more hints about Ziqi's real identity built into the story from the beginning, and I would have liked Miaomiao herself to figure it out. Her character started out with a lot of agency, but by the end I felt like she was turning into kind of just a stand in for "happy character that the male character has to experience character growth in order to earn". This was pretty disappointing to me. It wasn't really egregious--she still is the reason that the world was saved, everyone is brought back to life, and even that Ziqi makes it to the top of that stairway to heaven in order to confront his true self. In other words, still quite a strong FMC...I would just have liked her to be the one who figured out who Ziqi really was.
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