I was delightfully taken by this drama. As the title implies, I started watching for the age-gap romance but what really caught my interest and addiction to this drama was all the friendship/familyship. I really would call this more of a family, slice-of-life drama than straight romance based on how much screen time our leads ended up getting.

Story: I just loved watching the He family interact with each other, how they were so bickering yet open and supportive. I know it's a cultural thing, but I liked how they just causally put food in each other's bowls. I also loved the strong friendship among the FL and her friends (and her brother too). It was really heartwarming to see them encouraging and/or gently scolding one another. I think one of my favorite parts of the show is how Song Xue and Xiao Yu walking into the He residence unannounced is considered normal behavior.

As for our main romance, it was cute. Our couple had a good enough chemistry and I was always rooting for them. Our supporting couples were cute too.

I really liked our female lead. To be honest, as I was watching the drama, there was something off about her and I couldn't figure it out until this scene where she is telling someone that she wants to be a normal person and that's what I realized felt off - she really felt more like a normal person. To me, a lot of drama female leads are written as, well, drama female leads. They are positive, cheerful, resilient, self-sacrificing, idealistic and brave, almost to the point of unrealistic. It's kind of hard to explain, but a lot of drama characters are written in a way where you enjoy watching them as characters but wouldn't see them as real people. Although Fanxing shared many similar characteristics, she had flaws - she was insecure, hesitant and timid - that got her into trouble and were frustrating to watch as a viewer but these are flaws real people have. I read a comment once on how rather than "strong female characters" dramas need to have well well-written ones and I do believe Fanxing is a well-written female lead. Coming from a culture that does not support older female/younger male romance, I could see where she was coming from and why she was making the decisions she was.

I liked our male lead too - he was adorable and I loved his earnest love for our female lead. I had mixed feelings about our second ML but I'm not sure if it's my double standards. I don't mind if when male leads are sneaky (cough Love O2O) but the way our 2nd ML went about it just irked me. I think this drama showed me why chemistry is so important. I sometimes get so frustrated with dramas where the female lead leaves this perfect 2nd lead or sees him as just a friend but I could see exactly why our female lead wanted our male lead.

Acting: Almost everyone did a decent enough job, most especially the parents. This is my first time seeing both the FL/ML act. I think Victoria did a good job. This is just my opinion, but I think the male lead did just ok. Yes, he was really (really, really) handsome. But, there were a few times I had to rely on context clues to figure out what he was thinking, I couldn't tell by looking at his face.

Music: loved the OST, really had the dreamy but calm vibe

Production: This is the one area that lowers points for me. I hated how edited a lot of the kissing/romance scenes were, to the point where I feel like didn't even see the actual scene, just a bunch of side angles and snapshots of what it was supposed to be.

Overall: At the end of the day, we watch dramas for enjoyment and this did its genre well. It was just the right mix of realism and cheesiness to make it a worthwhile watch.