This is the first 100 episode type kdrama I've watched and overall it was a good experience! Oh my gosh, BTW the plot summary on mydramalist is super misleading, ignore it. Basically, this show focuses on a couple of families which encounter each other because of terrible events that happen, and while they attempt to not associate with each other ever again, several of the kids run into each other years later and form relationships despite their unfortunate family histories.

This show certainly has heartbreak but is also full of heartwarming moments. The beginning in particular is very hard to watch (trigger warning: suicide). It starts off fairly dark, but after that I think I don't think it gets as dark. Mostly because at that point there are characters who love and support each other, so our sad characters have someone to lean on. What really impressed me the most was the character growth in this show, as well as the excellent development of relationships. There's a lot of healing in this drama and found family, themes which I tend to like, reminding me of shows like Just Between Lovers or 30 but 17 (in fairness, I do like those shows more than this one). Characters are healing from traumatic event(s) together, and both biologically-related families and not-related families grow closer and support each other.

Is the pace of this show slow? It's certainly slower than I'm used to. I don't necessarily want to find fault in that though, because that's just the format of a 100 episode show. This isn't paced like a conventional 16/20 episode kdrama, but I do think it's well-paced. I always felt like things were happening, whether that was developments in the plot or relationships. The couples are darn cute in this show and they're a joy to watch. If you enjoy romances in kdramas and wish you got to see more times of your fave couple together, well hey, maybe you should watch a 100 episode kdrama!

That being said, I'll complain about a few things. This show focuses on multiple families, so there's a lot of characters, some of whom I didn't like or care about. So when we spent time on those characters, I wasn't thrilled, and because it's 100 episodes we get plenty of scenes of them. I honestly skipped through some scenes because they didn't seem relevant to the plot. I overall enjoyed where the story went in this show, but there were a few plot lines that wrapped up in a way I didn't like (I am SO MAD about how a certain relationship ends up). I also didn't like how jealousy seemed to be a driving factor for a couple of our male leads.

tl;dr Characters and relationships are great, it's pretty well-paced despite the 100 episodes, is heartwarming and sad in all the right ways, but does have a few subplots and characters I didn't care about. Someone please make Yoon Park the main male lead, and have a second season where Kang Shi Wol is a main character so he gets the girl.

I made a silly powerpoint review thing of this show on my blog: https://kdramakitty.tumblr.com/post/618516301745471488