True to Love (2023)

True To Love !

What after you break up ... all that fuss for nothing. Life is not all rosy and not always will the person next to you make you feel butterflies, life reaches you in various aspects some you imagine and some you dare not. And that's just what it's all about -living each day as if there's no tomorrow while planning a forever.
It's a combined package of hope and despair.

So a dating coach failing at love huh, to be honest, I did not really expect that I would love it this much but clearly, this show grows onto you. With each passing episode, you realize that this show doesn't promise an answer to how you should deal with your love life or as a matter of fact breakup it simply just promises a hope that it'll get better.

To me, there's no simple answer to whether you should watch it or not all I can say is you need to try it for yourself. To some the character of bo ra may seem shallow but it has layers to it. The ML and FL may not be the best for butterfly chemistry but they do top the charts for real stuff.

It's an achievement for a show to depict a fiction that seems real. Everyone knows things in real life don't work like they do in the show but even then it answers questions in a way that makes you feel content.

What I loved throughout the show was that it was lovable in little elements and the characters were true to themselves.

SPOILER STUFF AHEAD !!! .............
(So it's been long since I wrote a review and quite frankly I know I am writing a long one again this time. ) A LITTLE HEADS UP !

Let's begin with how ML offers rides to FL before even falling for her. Even though he doesn't agree to the ways she believes in and advertises, there's a certain respect that he offers. (manifesting friendships like these)

I love how Bo Ra even after hearing that she is suffocating to be around still hangs on to her personality of confessing first and being the hopeless romantic. At the same time I also appreciate that ML was true to his personality of being the closed one. I am the closed kind of person and know that even if we see things going wrong we just can't really admit to our emotions easily.

During the course of the show, I come to like Bo Ra because initially I just literally thought that she was a dumb kind of character for going back to someone who clearly ain't into her. But through the journey of these 14 eps, I realized that both things are okay since there's no right or wrong in matters of heart. Either you say it or you don't in the end all that matters is the feeling.
I love how she has her own journey of self-realization while writing that whole book ...

The free hugs, walk back home, listening to her blabber while drunk was all so much needed !

WHAT AFTER A BREAKUP ???

..the major and best part of the show ...get up, pick yourself up, find an identity that belongs to you, see the world with the new perspective you have found, order that special pizza, buy your birthstone jewelry and fucking live.
do whatever makes you happy if that's getting drunk on street it's absolutely okay. It's okay to have a hard time breaking up it's okay if you fall for someone who makes you feel special instead of someone who cannot provide you with the assurance you need. Everything is okay, not being able to get over that cheat or parting ways mutually, falling in love again , failing in love again ....fucking everything.

I love how the side characters try to make things work ( Bo Ra's friend and her husband) I know as a fact that marriage is not some child play and it's not that simple. The way they just exist next to each other is a treat in itself.
(But as they say too much sugar is bitter - at times they are just so annoying that I literally had to skip through)
I must admit that I liked how their marriage was an issue in itself and how they were trying to sort things through.

I also liked the trope of ML's bestie and her ex-wife they had a journey of their own. Of self-realization, blame games, hatred, longing, affection and so much more. They just made it so much better.

I liked the Farce comedy throughout the show and somehow it just makes it objectively better for me cuz afterall I need drama in a drama.

What could be avoided ....

Well the pregnancy trope was really a big turn-off for me.
The return of Bo Ra's ex clearly unnecessary.
The ceo falling (ML's bestie) for some coworker...I didn't need that

I certainly did appreciate the fact that the show covers every aspect like marriage, divorce, dating, cheating, breakups, and proposals ....like everything.

THE BEST LINES FROM THE SHOW .....

"Even if someone will die tomorrow if you kill him today, it's murder." (The context in which it is used is just love)

"I can't leave this world with a tombstone that says - She was dumped, drunk and clingy."- (so rewrite who you want to be, rewrite so you can lie peacefully in your grave.)

"And then, I felt the ground. It had felt like a bottomless pit, but then I felt the ground. It was impossible to sink deeper. I hit rock bottom and it can't get any worse. Now I can only get back up."

"I don't need reassurance from someone for the choices I make."

" Whether it's a happy ending or a sad one I have to write my own ending."

and the last lines from the drama ....
"But our love is neither a perfect happy ending nor a sad ending, it's an open ending.
There's no such thing as a strategy for love, that never fails.
Promises will be broken, Love will change in the course of time....
some may say ...after making all that fuss you guys ended up splitting...when our relationship ends at some unknown point.
still, we will not regret that.
Like we live though we know we'll die someday.
Like we buy flowers though we know they'll wilt.
Like we sadly say goodbye though we know we'll see each other tomorrow.
likewise, we make promises we can't keep sometimes
like we buy stuff that is useless
we are true to love every possible moment
....from the bottom of our heart, we are true to love. !!! "

TO WATCH OR MAYBE SAVE TIME ....???

For me I really feel like this show does have a lot to offer but I do acknowledge that It's not the show that everyone would love.
I'd still suggest you that on case you try it out be patient let the story build and grow on to you you won't regret spending time on it.
I'll probably come for a rewatch in my next life ...for this one I plan on exploring a lot other gems. !
but once was a must !

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Perfectly paced and focused

This is officially the best break-up, moving-on, and recovering/healing drama ever. Not just in K-drama land, but in the entire world and in history.

Maybe it's too early to claim that, but 6 episodes in, and it's very evident already.

They let us see up close and personal what a person who loves someone so much, have given them everything, feels like and goes through after a nasty break-up, (specially because of cheating).

They did not rush the story. It was paced well, to bring out the emotions, the pain, the hurt. The psychological impact, and ultimately, how a person can get back on their feet.

The monologues were awesome as well. Every single one of it were felt. They showed us the process.

And as someone who have been in such a situation, Yoo In Na captured everything so well. Did she experience it herself? Because gawd, that was me. Desperate. Shaking. Hopeful. End-of-the-world. Will take all the blame, will even take the blame for killing Abel, or Julius Caesar. Will turn a blind-eye. Will even accept sharing your partner! Because at that moment, you're thinking you can not live without them.

You can not accept the new reality in front of you. You want to move on, but the new reality is unrealistic. You are not in denial anymore (otherwise you wouldn't even beg), you just do not want to embrace your new reality. You want to run away from it.

“No, that's not a reality I will accept, I can make this work, I can choose which reality I want, I can manifest it.”

It will be for a long while before this show is dethroned in my list as the #1 break-up, moving-on, recovering/healing relationship story.

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