merie

I was mostly through this series after highly enjoying it... Until the whole kidnapping ordeal with the brother really left a bad taste for me. I literally thought it was a fever dream scene at first because of how out of place it felt with the rest of the series. The whiplash from happy-cheery family redemption time to that hot mess was crazy. I wish this series just stuck more to cooking and leaning into the slice of life/rom-com aspect, which I thought was this series' strong suit. To me, both ML and FL became irredeemable after that incident because of how they handled it. The FL and ML, who were originally super charming to me, became increasingly unbearable to watch because of how repeatedly stubborn and childishly upset they get. If I were to watch this again, I'd stop at the mark where Du Kai Chi and Ah Jie go on their aquarium date. That would've been the best place to end this series and I don't understand why they decided to drag it on in such a weird direction.

My least favorite character was Cheng Le Xuan at the start because of her competitive streak with FL, but she actually turned out to be my favorite by the end. She's such a refreshing character who shows a lot of growth and is a genuine sweetheart through and through (she was also done so dirty in the kidnapping situation, ugh).

Overall, I did enjoy the acting. I originally watched this for Puff Kuo and I was impressed by how she was able to so naturally convey the difficult, Du Kai Chi; a character whose personality seems better suited for animation because of how exaggerated and repetitive her grouchy mannerisms can be. Jasper Liu came off as a bit awkward at times, but I do give him credit because his character had to say a ton of cornball romance lines.