I tried to watch another drama by Steven Zhang from The Day of Becoming You, but had to drop it. Instead, I started on another drama that was also a surprised hit.
Warning, lots of pictures of books ahead.
- Age: 18+
- Romance: pretty tame
- Genre: contemporary, sweet romance
- Episodes: 36x45min (27 episodes)
- Actors: 虞書欣 (Esthur Yu), 丁禹兮 (Ryan Ding)
- Wiki: Chinese, English
- Released: May 2021
- Where to Watch: iQiyi
TLDR for Friends
If you like, no, LOVE books, this is a good watch-it-to-fall-asleep drama. Out of the sweet romance dramas, it was pretty well written. Probably because in addition to the sweet romance, it actually had a good plot line about the FLs career as an editor.
But otherwise some of the sweet was 🤮. The FL’s voice grated on me. She did the cute Japanese girl voice and SO much pucker lips. Gagh.
The second lead story was blah. I skipped all of it.
But oh the books! I took so many screen shots of the books. And there was this scene where she held this book over her head and was smelling it……mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm……..
So yeah, watch it if you like books. Cuz for all my gagging on some of the romance, the book industry plot really kept me watching.
And this bookstore from the drama is a real bookstore in Shanghai!
Plot and Quick Review
虞書欣 (Esthur Yu) has been Internet friends with 丁禹兮 (Ryan Ding) for 3 years. They’ve never met each other nor know what each other looks like. She moved to his city, gets hired as an editor, and unbeknownst to her, becomes his book editor. But he figures out her identity early on.
We walk through the process of publishing a book, from her signing 丁禹兮 (Ryan Ding) on, to the editing process, to picking cover art, writing copy on that little cover slip I see often in Taiwanese books, etc etc. It was utterly fascinating and way more detailed than Lee Jong Suk’s Romance is a Bonus Book.
For example, I didn’t know that authors are offered a minimum book print. It isn’t the number of books they actually print, but rather what is used to calculate their earnings. Oh wait, is that what a book advance is? Well, the web explanation isn’t quite what it sounds like in the drama, but maybe it’s the same thing.
Anyways, throughout the drama, 丁禹兮 (Ryan Ding) secretly helps 虞書欣 (Esthur Yu) as she works to publish his book and signs on more authors. It takes him awhile to admit he likes her. But they eventually, slowly, get together.
The last 1/4 episodes they ran out of ideas and introduced a new evil female character, which was kind of lame.
But really, I’m here to talk about the books. I want to live in his house! Look at the wall of books in his study and the wall in his living room! AND AND, the second pic shows you that the entrance to his study is his living room bookshelf!
Then there’s more books in his bedroom.
What Parents Need to Know
Tons of typical Asian romantic drama setups (tall guy reaching for high things, piggy back ride, one umbrella in the rain, slip and fall).
Behold. typical Asian romantic drama setups: 1) accidentally eating ice cream together, 2) 壁咚 3) reaching for something high.
Don’t forget the 5 second stare.
The ML lies to the FL for at least 15-18 episodes? He figures out her Internet identity early, he uses that knowledge to suss her out when she wouldn’t talk to him in real life. And it took all of half an episode to forgive him. He was so unrepentant too.
Chinese Aspect or Things to Talk to Kids About?
Well, this really isn’t a kid drama. It’s really a drama for book lovers like me! And adults who like 言情劇 (which I just learned means romantic dramas).
But you can learn a lot of vocabulary about books and publishing! For example, by the end of the drama, I actually googled the genre of book that ML writes, it’s called oriental fantasy books, 東方玄幻. I even googled which were the famous ones in hopes of reading. Sadly they didn’t sound that great.
Also, because they’re all writers, they speak prettily without it being too too difficult to understand. In other words, the dialogues are pretty well written.
