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son yejin and hyun bin on you quiz on the block

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crash landing on you shonichi

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The Friend Zone Experiment by Zen Cho

it's not every day your favorite fantasy author writes a novel inspired by your favorite drama.

i've been a fan of @zenaldehyde for 8 years now, so to see her venturing into a romance birthed by crash landing on you itself signals an immediate purchase for me.

[official book website]

going into the novel, it's easy to see why the main characters could pass as au versions of seri and jeong-hyeok, so much that the similarities can be too on the nose. renee goh owns a successful fashion company and in the line of succession of a powerful conglomerate family (from whom she is also estranged), add to that two toxic brothers and a string of exes. yap ket siong is a gifted (tall, broad, gentle, handsome) pianist who is close to his brother. there was a point where i worried too much about parallels but eventually as the world building progresses, the characters would stand on their own merits and unique backstories, and diverge from the cookie dough from whence they have come from.

i imagine it like the author trying to fill in a coloring book, instead of say writing from scratch. but she doesn't necessarily use yellow for the sun or green for the trees or blue for sky. she colors in the scenery in her own way, and in the manner she sees the world and in this case, an intermingling of malaysian, singaporean, and british cultures. this has always been one of her trademarks in her books. she takes something to a different spin like say how she puts Malaysian witches in magical English polite society in Sorcerer to the Crown.

admittedly, i'm very biased for Zen's writing, i love it, it's fun, it's springy, it's colorful. while there's no actual abracadabra magic in this book, she's weaving her spells just the same, in creating sparks between characters. you can trust her to create characters with depth and purpose, like this isn't just about one relationship, but also adult friendships, families, female camaraderie, and many of these rooted to a distinct heritage that me as a southeast asian girl can relate with.

the story is also framed according to real-life events with a touch of fantasy (coz rich people) but the tone and plot perfectly balances between the grim and light (as characteristic of the romance genre). i think it's a balance that's hard to pull off and to justify, but Zen is no stranger to combining two different worlds and making it gel nicely and firmly.

the novel shines its brightest when everything comes together and you chew right into the sweet center. but perhaps as all sweet centers go, it runs out quickly. i'd have wanted to relish it longer.

i've seen some of the mixed reviews and i feel there's something being lost in translation (and possibly marketing?) the book is inspired by the themes, feels, and plot structure of a kdrama, and many of the readers aren't exactly familiar of the genre still. instead they compare it to the first thing people think about when it comes to asians and rich people (yeah that book) which is a rather myopic view imho. that KK book was written with a tabloid sensibility in mind. The Friend Zone Experiment offers so much more to the table (though the title could do much better to communicate that).

but as a kdrama viewer, and a Zen Cho reader, i can say it's a treat for me. will i read it if i were not a kdrama viewer? i'm not sure. but i'm gonna lift a page straight out of cloy and say it's fate that i got to know about this book just when i'm also kneedeep into kdramas.

who will enjoy this? people who liked cloy, people curious about southeast asian affairs and living in diasporic situations, people who love strong women and green flag men, people who want well-written asian characters, people who love a good plot in their romances, and yes, people who love kdramas!

owing to their superior storytelling techniques, kdrama interest is growing and i've been seeing more blogs and readers looking for books with the literary equivalent of watching a kdrama episode. i can recommend this one, especially for the holidays. it's the best time to slurp up a book and feel warm and fuzzy inside.

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Hyun Bin at the Seoul Harbin production presentation, November 27, 2024

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Hyun Bin as Ahn Jung-geun in the Seoul production presentation for Harbin, November 27, 2024

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hyun bin sent son yejin a foodtruck I KNOW K-ENT COUPLES DO THIS but it's different when it's them ok.

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he's really evil ok

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se-hyeong se-joon and cho cheol-gang doing overtime on pass

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this is lovely thanks op

Crash landing on you is just like *most romantic scene you’ve ever seen in your life, the boys being cute and funny, women supporting women North Korea edition, evillest snake villain of all time, Se-ri’s toad family being toads, most romantic scene you’ve ever seen in your life—

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Se-ri one of the best female characters I’ve seen on screen for a while

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Crash Landing on You: The musical adaptations

2022 Original Korean musical in Seoul

2024 Korean musical staging premiere and rerun in Tokyo

2024 Takarazuka Snow Troupe performance

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‘I forgive the world because it has you’ always leaves me gasping for breath

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Asami Jun as Ri Jeong-hyeok and Yumeshiro Aya as Yoon Se-ri for the Takarazuka stage adaptation of Crash Landing on You

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now it's mr crash-landing-on-you and mr a-moment-to-remember!!

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@userdramas event 18: music KDRAMA OSTs Twenty-Five Twenty-One (2022) Crash Landing on You (2019) Twinkling Watermelon (2023) Start Up (2020) My Dearest (2023)

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@ younger self, it's mr all-in and ms summer-scent doing a movie with mr lady-vengeance. 🥹

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Harbin [2024]

Cast: Hyun Bin; Jeon Yeo Been; Park Jung Min; Park Hoon; Jo Woo Jin; Yoo Jae Myung; Lee Dong Wook

Synopsis: In 1909, Korean independence activist Ahn Jung-geun leads an attack on Japanese forces in Harbin, China.

Premiere: September 2024 (Toronto International Film Festival)

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