Fresh off watching strong recent performances for Lee Jong Suk in "Big Mouth" and Wi Ha Joon in "Little Women", I decided to check out Romance is a Bonus Book, curious as to some of their characters they played in their previous works. I figured it couldn't hurt to watch RIABB since both of them were in it and I was looking for some lighter fare to watch.

Boy was that a mistake. I'll try to keep the plot points at a high-level, if you're still curious to watch this.

The show starts off fine enough. Dan-Yi's journey of rediscovering herself as a working woman after spending time away to be a housewife is relatable and admirable. We can appreciate her struggle, her sorrow and what a bad situation she finds herself in. Especially in Asia, where women are still expected to be the sole the caretaker of the house. This is all good. She is determined to find a new path in her life, work through the garbage tasks given to her at her new job and find new love.

Once the story turns the corner to her relationship with the male lead, the story goes all downhill. I don't know who comes up with these ideals that if you wait for someone for over *checks notes* "TWENTY, TWENTY years" that somehow you will be rewarded with an opportunity to shack up with them. It's almost bizarre how his character basically ignores her problems initially and swoops into the save the day later on.

Why would a man so perfect be single? He was waiting his whole life for the girl that got hit by a car for him? Sure, even if I accept that backstory as plausible, he basically says every girl he dated after she got married didn't work out because it wasn't her? I'm supposed to believe that too? It's no wonder why everyone has this made up fantasy in their heads that there is only ONE person in the entire world for them.

In addition, we also given our sad sack second placers to complete the love triangles with Wi Ha Joon and Eugene Jung, who in typical fashion, are generally far more compelling then the lead couple. I probably would have had more fun with the series had they focused a little more on these two, rather than all the middling side stores of the less important characters they added in for some reason. Did we need all the screen time for Park Gyu Young (who was actually kind of funny at times), Kang Gi Doong, Jo Han Chul and friends?

It's just time wasted that could have been better spent elsewhere. When the main couple's relationship advances, why is there no talk of the daughter? What happened to her? She was so important to Dan-Yi initially. Is the ML going to be her father? Is there no such thing as co-parenting with the ex-husband? Where even is she? Dealing with these actual issues would have been much better than the made-up issues they came up with to pad the run time.

The last few episodes were a drag and made no sense. They sure went to a lot of trouble to make-up issues for Dan-Yi just to have an magical ass-pull fix to remedy the situation that didn't even need to happen in the first place. What for? Because they really had nothing left to tell. Wi Ha Joon's closing arc is not worth noting either. It was a weak attempt to play at emotion to close the story.

In the end, they gave everyone a happy ending. Was anything learned? Not really. The book closes with a happily ever after. I don't think you'll be happy after watching it though.

Suggestion: PASS