Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Re-watch value: 1 out of 5 stars
Synopsis
*From DramaList*
Cellphone app Joalarm is created. If someone likes you and they are within 10 meters of you, the alarm for the app rings. The app also shows how many people like you, but the app doesn’t reveal specific details on who likes you. Kim Jo Jo is a high school student. She is pretty and smart. She seems like a cheerful person, but her parents died when she was young. Since the death of her parents, Kim Jo Jo has lived with aunt’s family. Living there is not easy for Kim Jo Jo. She doesn’t download the app Joalarm as her phone isn’t new enough. Meanwhile, Hwang Sun Oh is a popular male student at the same high school where Kim Jo Jo attends. He is the son of a wealthy family, but he is not loved by his parents. His best friend Lee Hee Yeong also attends the same high school. Hwang Sun Oh notices that his best friend Lee Hye Yeong likes Kim Jo Jo. Hwang Sun Oh wants to know if his friend really likes her, so he kisses her.
Rambling
*beware of spoilers*
I found this show annoying. But not annoyingly good.
It reminded me of that movie Timer (2009) where everyone can opt for a wrist implant that counts down to the moment when the user will meet his or her soulmate. Except in this show, it’s a phone app that mysteriously and accurately determines if someone nearby likes you. It’s my opinion that it simply reads the physiological reaction of those nearby you (heart beating faster, pheromones, etc.), as I just can’t fathom the app can read your mind and feelings.
Protagonist Sucks
The main character Kim Jo-jo lives in a hellish family situation with her aunt literally hating her and blaming her for the tragic death of her parents. Any debt the aunt accumulated as a result is being paid back by Jo-jo—who is still a damn high school student. Makes no sense at all. It’s basically a Cinderella scenario—instead of an evil stepmother, it’s a totally wicked blood-related aunt. Instead of an evil stepsister, it’s a conniving and jealous cousin-bitch (new term).
Jo-jo starts out working like 5 part-time jobs and keeping it a secret from her school friends—you know, because she’s ashamed of her family life and work obligations. She also bizarrely has a boyfriend. He’s a wrestler, a tall wall of a dude, extremely clueless about Jo-jo’s real life, a bad listener—like, how did these two get together in the first place? I had a raging moment when she says she can’t hang out because she has to work, and when she suggests he come help her at the convenience store, this guy goes, “Why would I do that?” WHO SAYS THAT TO THEIR STRUGGLING GIRLFRIEND?
Anyway, her character is annoying because she’s long-suffering and wishy washy. She doesn’t stand up for herself in the face of true (family) villainy and is content to just believe the lies they tell her… As if a child could be responsible for the double suicide of her parents and be blamed for surviving instead of dying with them. Not to mention the way she totally destroys her good romance with Sun-oh (more on that next). Ridiculous.
Romance?
Let’s talk about the romance, if you can even call it that. Sun-oh—a famous teenage model with his own busted family dynamics—returns to Korea after being shipped off to the U.S. and proceeds to hit on Jo-jo. He became interested in her in the first place because his best friend Hee-yeong has a huge crush on her. I don’t know, I feel like that’s breaking the bro-code right there.
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