the story definitely.....fell a bit to the side by the end and either gets wrapped up too quickly or never gets a satisfying resolution, (like the parents? erm), but this was still an overall sweet and heartwarming watch.

all of the characters feel about as awkward as teenagers tend to be, (although tbh, I'm...not too sure if it was intentional or not), but nonetheless added to the overall "youthful" charm of the series. they're all very sweet and range from being slightly awkward to Quite awkward, which balances out with the seriousness of Ye Guang's parents.

i do wish they had more time for the story, because it's clear by the end that a lot of plot threads got dropped or seemingly just....forgotten, and the few ones that weren't WERE rushed, some more clumsily than others. scenes and time noticeably jumped around more near the end (without seeming choppy somehow?), but it still wrapped up mostly okay. (Ray and Jian are adorable but I still had no idea what was going on with them by the end lmao.)

One of my only and biggest criticisms is just that they went too hard on making the parents horrible when they didn't have the space/room to give it a proper resolution. It's quite off putting especially when put next to the cute little scene with the leads...

in the end, besides the emotional abuse and neglect coming from one set of parents, this is just a typical high school coming of age series full of fluff and heart (+ angst), despite the lack of cohesiveness in the story. Also, Ye Guang's actor kept reminding me of a sad puppy this whole time while watching and I just had to put it in this review. That's what made it so satisfying to see whenever he smiled or actually looked happy, especially by the end.

Would probably rewatch and skip most of the parent scenes, because, ow