This review may contain spoilers
It takes courage to reinvent your life
My rating is 9.5/10
I loved pretty much everything about this series my only real complaint is that it's short. I would've enjoyed it even more if they'd done a few more episodes and actually allowed the character stories to more fully play out.
It covers a lot of really heavy issues but not in a way that drags you down. If anything, it's uplifting to see somebody escape corporate bullying and build a life that's meaningful for them. It's heartwarming in the found family/friendship group that Lee Yeo-reum forms, how she fits into the town, and especially the main couple. You can clearly see Yeo-reum and Ahn Dae-beom so completely complement each other in their manners and personalities.
I would recommend this to others, and I would watch it again. It's more of a hidden gem type of quality—like if you've watched a lot of other things and you're looking for something fresh, this is one that might surprise you with how good it actually is.
Spoilers
My main complaint was that Yeo-reum and Dae-beom are only at the point of holding hands in the end, and it's pretty clear the relationship will probably continue to progress. But it would've been super heartwarming to see them fully get together with some kind of confession or something—because they never really have a big confession to each other. They just kind of naturally melt together in a way.
Actually, the second couple—the young couple with Heo Jae-hoon and Kim Bom—their romance is a lot more definitive. He asks her to marry him, and she sort of brushes it off, but it does make it clear that's where things are headed.
There's another potential couple with the single dad Bae Sung-min who has the little kid Bae Joon, and the girl Jo Ji-young who used to like Dae-beom so much. You see them hanging out together all the time. Honestly, I cared about that one the least because I thought Jo Ji-young was so negative about everything, and she pushed Dae-beom in directions he really didn't need to go. Yes, she did eventually see that, but she seemed more tuned to success than happiness. Still, it would've been cute to see something more definitive in that relationship as well, because Bae Sung-min liked her so much, he had the little boy, and she started paying attention to and doing things for the little boy, which made it seem like she was thinking along those lines. But again, it wasn't very clear.
With Dae-ho, they cleared him and showed that he wasn't the criminal—he himself was a victim who had witnessed some really scary things—but it didn't show that he'd gotten professional help. It kind of implied it, and you could tell he was doing a little better with his emotion control, but it didn't actually show that was the case.
So that's the main flaw I think with it, and I think it's also a factor of its 12 episodes when it could've easily been 16. That's what kept it from being a show that always rises to the top of people's must-watch lists.
Like a lot of viewers, I was very angry with the way Kim Bom's dad Kim Jung-hoon was, and that he basically got away with stabbing his young daughter and not getting in trouble for it because she covered for him. It was an accident, yes, but he was headed out to do something really bad, and she was trying to stop him. You don't get into an aggressive fight with somebody you love with a knife in your hand—that's just never acceptable.
They also had Yeo-reum cover up what she thought had happened because Dae-ho would never do something like that, they said. But all the facts pointed to him having done it. And she wound up getting blamed and ostracized for not accusing him and potentially stopping the murder. You later discover why she should've been protective, but she didn't know it at that time.
The townspeople are also okay with Kim Jung-hoon slapping her for supposedly allowing the murderer to be free, when they were the ones who had pressured her to protect him. No one, including Kim Bom, came forward to comfort her in that really hard time. I had such a warm fuzzy feeling for that town up to that point, but it showed that they never truly embraced people they consider outsiders.
I was glad she stayed in the town for Dae-beom, and I was also glad she reconciled with Bom—because Bom was young, and so her error was a bit understandable. But it was sad that none of the other people she had befriended said anything when Kim Jung-hoon attacked her like that.
Major characters:
Lee Yeo-reum (Kim Seol-hyun) — A resilient but exhausted 28-year-old former office worker who declares a "life strike" after personal tragedies, moving to the countryside to rediscover joy in simplicity.
Ahn Dae-beom (Yim Si-wan) — A shy, stuttering village librarian and former mathematical genius haunted by family loss, whose quiet kindness hides deep emotional wounds.
Jo Ji-young (Park Ye-young) — Dae-beom's longtime friend and admirer who runs a local billiard hall, grappling with unrequited feelings and her own vulnerabilities.
Kim Bom (Shin Eun-soo) — A troubled high school girl facing bullying and family dysfunction, who forms a heartfelt sisterly bond with Yeo-reum while searching for stability.
I loved pretty much everything about this series my only real complaint is that it's short. I would've enjoyed it even more if they'd done a few more episodes and actually allowed the character stories to more fully play out.
It covers a lot of really heavy issues but not in a way that drags you down. If anything, it's uplifting to see somebody escape corporate bullying and build a life that's meaningful for them. It's heartwarming in the found family/friendship group that Lee Yeo-reum forms, how she fits into the town, and especially the main couple. You can clearly see Yeo-reum and Ahn Dae-beom so completely complement each other in their manners and personalities.
I would recommend this to others, and I would watch it again. It's more of a hidden gem type of quality—like if you've watched a lot of other things and you're looking for something fresh, this is one that might surprise you with how good it actually is.
Spoilers
My main complaint was that Yeo-reum and Dae-beom are only at the point of holding hands in the end, and it's pretty clear the relationship will probably continue to progress. But it would've been super heartwarming to see them fully get together with some kind of confession or something—because they never really have a big confession to each other. They just kind of naturally melt together in a way.
Actually, the second couple—the young couple with Heo Jae-hoon and Kim Bom—their romance is a lot more definitive. He asks her to marry him, and she sort of brushes it off, but it does make it clear that's where things are headed.
There's another potential couple with the single dad Bae Sung-min who has the little kid Bae Joon, and the girl Jo Ji-young who used to like Dae-beom so much. You see them hanging out together all the time. Honestly, I cared about that one the least because I thought Jo Ji-young was so negative about everything, and she pushed Dae-beom in directions he really didn't need to go. Yes, she did eventually see that, but she seemed more tuned to success than happiness. Still, it would've been cute to see something more definitive in that relationship as well, because Bae Sung-min liked her so much, he had the little boy, and she started paying attention to and doing things for the little boy, which made it seem like she was thinking along those lines. But again, it wasn't very clear.
With Dae-ho, they cleared him and showed that he wasn't the criminal—he himself was a victim who had witnessed some really scary things—but it didn't show that he'd gotten professional help. It kind of implied it, and you could tell he was doing a little better with his emotion control, but it didn't actually show that was the case.
So that's the main flaw I think with it, and I think it's also a factor of its 12 episodes when it could've easily been 16. That's what kept it from being a show that always rises to the top of people's must-watch lists.
Like a lot of viewers, I was very angry with the way Kim Bom's dad Kim Jung-hoon was, and that he basically got away with stabbing his young daughter and not getting in trouble for it because she covered for him. It was an accident, yes, but he was headed out to do something really bad, and she was trying to stop him. You don't get into an aggressive fight with somebody you love with a knife in your hand—that's just never acceptable.
They also had Yeo-reum cover up what she thought had happened because Dae-ho would never do something like that, they said. But all the facts pointed to him having done it. And she wound up getting blamed and ostracized for not accusing him and potentially stopping the murder. You later discover why she should've been protective, but she didn't know it at that time.
The townspeople are also okay with Kim Jung-hoon slapping her for supposedly allowing the murderer to be free, when they were the ones who had pressured her to protect him. No one, including Kim Bom, came forward to comfort her in that really hard time. I had such a warm fuzzy feeling for that town up to that point, but it showed that they never truly embraced people they consider outsiders.
I was glad she stayed in the town for Dae-beom, and I was also glad she reconciled with Bom—because Bom was young, and so her error was a bit understandable. But it was sad that none of the other people she had befriended said anything when Kim Jung-hoon attacked her like that.
Major characters:
Lee Yeo-reum (Kim Seol-hyun) — A resilient but exhausted 28-year-old former office worker who declares a "life strike" after personal tragedies, moving to the countryside to rediscover joy in simplicity.
Ahn Dae-beom (Yim Si-wan) — A shy, stuttering village librarian and former mathematical genius haunted by family loss, whose quiet kindness hides deep emotional wounds.
Jo Ji-young (Park Ye-young) — Dae-beom's longtime friend and admirer who runs a local billiard hall, grappling with unrequited feelings and her own vulnerabilities.
Kim Bom (Shin Eun-soo) — A troubled high school girl facing bullying and family dysfunction, who forms a heartfelt sisterly bond with Yeo-reum while searching for stability.
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