Review: Suddenly This Summer [China]

THE SHORT VERDICT:

An earthy youth-to-young adult story of growing up, and learning to love yourself and others, Suddenly This Summer is understated, poignant and relatable in all the right ways.

Because Show is more slice-of-life than its cuter drama cousins like A Love So Beautiful and Put Your Head On My Shoulder, it can feel like a slow watch.

But what Show lacks in trendy cuteness, it more than makes up for, with characters – even the secondary ones – who feel like real people earnestly doing their best in their individual life journeys.

Even though Show is heart-pinching at times, it feels refreshing in its gentle earthiness.

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Flash Review: When We Were Young 2018 [China]

Remember when so many of you asked me if I knew of a show that’s similar to A Love So Beautiful? Back then, I felt like nothing really fit the bill, but now, I can finally say that this lil show does feel like it’s a reasonably close relative of A Love So Beautiful.

It’s true that this one’s much more about friendship and family than it is about romantic love, but the world in which these characters live feels like it’s plausibly just a couple of neighborhoods away from A Love So Beautiful’s drama world, in the same nostalgic time period to boot.

Both big plus points for me personally. I’ll admit that these characters didn’t come alive for me right away like the characters in A Love So Beautiful did, but I can honestly say that by series’ end, they’d gotten deep enough under my skin, that I was sincerely reluctant to say goodbye.

Which is why I think that if you loved A Love So Beautiful, then this one’s solidly worth a look.

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Year In Review: 2018

What a year, I say.

I know I said last year that Dramaland was exploding with more dramas than ever before, but Dramaland basically outdid itself in 2018 – and then some.

You know when you have only 2 ice-cream flavors, and only room in your stomach for 1 scoop, it’s really easy to choose, but you still wish you had more flavors to choose from?

Well, it’s all fine and good when it increases to 5 flavors, or 10 flavors, right? But when it gets to like, a thousand flavors, your eyes glaze over, you get hit by decision paralysis, and it just feels impossible to choose, anymore? Same thing.

I used to try and keep up with Dramaland, especially after I started blogging. I’d try to stay on top on what dramas were airing, and which ones were good, and I’d try to watch all the reportedly good ones, because I’m a curious cat and FOMO is real, yo.

Well. I think 2018 is the year that I realized it is humanly impossible to keep up with everything that Dramaland is putting out, and there is just not enough time in one person’s world, to watch all the reportedly good ones, and take time for the ones that you wanna watch, whether anyone else is interested or not.

So 2018 is the year that I stopped trying. Uh.. Kinda.

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