I started this drama because I'd seen Lee Min Gi in Dal Ja's Spring but my expectations were pretty low since the plot synopsis didn't seem interesting. But I unexpectedly fell in love with the show (at least up to episode 12). It's a sensitive and emotionally powerful look at how young women's dreams are undermined and stomped on.

For example, the FL is forced to leave the apartment she shares with her brother when his girlfriend gets pregnant (if she stays, she'll be forced to become a nanny and housekeeper for the household) and then later is nearly sexually assaulted by a work friend and has to quit her job after her bosses try to force her to continue working with him. In one scene she's wandering the streets alone at night in her pajamas and crying because she literally has no place to go. It's no wonder she enters a loveless contract marriage just so she has a safe and quiet place to sleep every night.

Even after the ML & FL get married their families try to force both of them into traditional gender roles. She's asked to attend her in-laws' memorial rites ceremony and has to do all of the cooking and clean up solo. Even when her husband tries to help her with the work, he's told by his mother that he'll shame his wife.

One of the most poignant scenes in the drama is at the wedding when the ML reads a letter written to him by his mother-in-law begging him to allow her daughter go back to her career as a writer if she wants to. The mother was trying to prevent her daughter from experiencing the same pain she'd gone through as a wife. I literally ugly cried watching it and I still tear up thinking about it.

But the drama isn't all dark and heavy. In fact it's often laugh out loud funny. There's hilarious scenes like when the leads announce their engagement to their family and friends and when the ML helps his in-laws make kimchi. And the FL's two best chingus add a lot of funny moments to the story.

The romance is an extremely sweet slow burn (up to episode 12, sigh) where you see two introverted and skittish people gradually fall in love. There's so many lovely moments like the wedding scene where the FL is sobbing uncontrollably just as their ceremony is about to start. Even though they are nowhere near being in love yet, the ML kneels down and tells the FL she doesn't have to stop crying, they can walk down the aisle together and that he'll stay by her side. I cried so hard in that scene.

So why isn't this a 10? The last four episodes.

The ML's first love shows up and this causes much cliched angst and sorrow for the FL (though she turns out to be a decent person) . The FL then inexplicably believes she has to choose between a highly compensated job at her husband's ex's firm or staying in a relationship with the ML so she turns down the job (wtf!). Then for no freakin' reason at all the FL decides she has to divorce the ML even though she's in love with him and she's aware that he's about to ask her to make their marriage real. (wtfffff!) Then she freakin disappears for months, leaving the ML an emotional basket case who ends up selling his home to escape bad memories. When the FL comes back, she simply crawls into bed with him and kisses and tada he instantly forgives her. (wtfffffffffffffff!) It literally feels like an entirely new writer came on board for the last four episodes. This ending isn't Do Do So So La La Sol levels of bad but still bad enough to leave me not feeling much when the leads finally get together for real.

Do I still recommend you watch this? Yes because the early episodes are hilarious, heartwarming and heart breaking and the depictions of women in their early 30s struggling just to survive are dead accurate .