Juelin
United States
This review may contain spoilers
One step forward, three steps backwards
This drama should serve as a cautionary tale for women to choose wisely in a marriage. It tells a story of empowerment, healing, and new beginnings. Lin Shuang gives up her brilliant career to be a housewife and a mother just to find out a few years later that her husband is unfaithful. Instead of sulking in depression, she picks herself up and pursues self-improvement for the sake of herself and her daughter.
The plot moves between different storylines of friendship, marriage, workplace, parenthood in a very realistic way. Lin Shuang achieves through trial and error overcoming multiple roadblocks all the while having to deal with her soon to be ex-husband's dirty schemes. She is kind and likable, hard to anger, and tends to avoid confrontation, which makes her an easy target for manipulation, especially by her overbearing in-laws. But, while I enjoy a good tale of female empowerment, Lin Shuang's character is just too good. She lets a lot of things slide for the sake of dignity, which is unsustainable and quite often hard to stomach. The breaking point is when she checks Wei Ming's parents into a nice hotel after they abducted her daughter to use as a bargaining chip in the divorce proceeding.
The pacing starts to drag as soon as the drama introduces secondary and tertiary characters nobody cares about. I couldn't care less about Jiang Xi mom's cancer or a continuous marathon of her brother's failures. I am here to watch a woman brave through a divorce, not filler characters being ridiculous. Another issue is that Lin Shuang has to deal with too many roadblocks. It's a drama, not someone's life story. For every step forward, she always takes three steps backwards, which makes the drama tedious to watch.
Lastly, the story reaches its logical conclusion at around episode 28 when the divorce is finalized. Everything moving forward is Wei Ming's new set of matrimonial problems with the next missus and Lin Shuang's incredibly slow and uninteresting romance with Gu Xu. The romantic development with Gu Xu should've been part of the story much earlier. After the divorce, it felt like the writers tried to scramble the plot because they forgot something.
Overall, this is a good slice-of-life drama with likable characters and semi-decent pacing. I recommend having a fast-forward button on stand-by.
The plot moves between different storylines of friendship, marriage, workplace, parenthood in a very realistic way. Lin Shuang achieves through trial and error overcoming multiple roadblocks all the while having to deal with her soon to be ex-husband's dirty schemes. She is kind and likable, hard to anger, and tends to avoid confrontation, which makes her an easy target for manipulation, especially by her overbearing in-laws. But, while I enjoy a good tale of female empowerment, Lin Shuang's character is just too good. She lets a lot of things slide for the sake of dignity, which is unsustainable and quite often hard to stomach. The breaking point is when she checks Wei Ming's parents into a nice hotel after they abducted her daughter to use as a bargaining chip in the divorce proceeding.
The pacing starts to drag as soon as the drama introduces secondary and tertiary characters nobody cares about. I couldn't care less about Jiang Xi mom's cancer or a continuous marathon of her brother's failures. I am here to watch a woman brave through a divorce, not filler characters being ridiculous. Another issue is that Lin Shuang has to deal with too many roadblocks. It's a drama, not someone's life story. For every step forward, she always takes three steps backwards, which makes the drama tedious to watch.
Lastly, the story reaches its logical conclusion at around episode 28 when the divorce is finalized. Everything moving forward is Wei Ming's new set of matrimonial problems with the next missus and Lin Shuang's incredibly slow and uninteresting romance with Gu Xu. The romantic development with Gu Xu should've been part of the story much earlier. After the divorce, it felt like the writers tried to scramble the plot because they forgot something.
Overall, this is a good slice-of-life drama with likable characters and semi-decent pacing. I recommend having a fast-forward button on stand-by.
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