This blog will contain spoilers, but if you’ve watched the drama, then not really.
In my recent list of completed dramas, I had the joy of adding the drama “Hidden Love” starring Zhao Lusi and Chen Zheyuan.
But what was even better was that it is a book-adapted drama and manhua with the same name. The other name for the same novel/drama/manhua is “Secretly Secretly but Unable to Say It” by the author Zhu Yi.
The thing with book-adapted dramas is that there's twice as much joy in enjoying the same story. Just with more additional scenes in either of the media. I personally love reading the book before jumping into the drama to compare how I imagined the characters, the justice the actors bring to them, and how much the screenwriter has stuck to the original story.
As usual, here’s a small summary:
Sang Zhi is just a 13-year-old teen when she first meets Duan Jiaxu, her big brother’s best friend. At the first meet, she is stunned by the handsome face of his and asks for a favor. A favor after favor turns into instances where Sang Zhi has the experience of her first crush.
However, not only is Duan Jiaxu her brother’s best friend but also older than her. With the knowledge that he would never see her romantically, Sang Zhi keeps her love confession to herself due to its unrequited nature.
Things take a turn when life puts both Sang Zhi and Duan Jiaxu in the same city and in each other's vicinity after years of distance between them.
The book review:
(This review contains SPOILERS!!)
To the drama lovers, the very fact that Zhao Lusi and Chen Zheyuan are playing the leads is enough to convince them to watch it. However, to all the book lovers, here are a few reasons why the book is better.
- Funny depictions of characters:
Where Sang Zhi might seem a bit stiff and unrelenting at the start of the drama, the book shows a lot more funny streaks in her behavior.
Even with the addition of more interactions between the Sang siblings, they hold the same relatable universal love-hate dynamic in the books which is just as fun.
As I have read the translated version of the book, reading the Chinese tonality and phrases is always new but brings a 3D effect to the character that I, as the reader, inject.
2. Written angst-
Sang Zhi
The book is mainly narrated from Sang Zhi’s point of view, thus the reader gets to go through all the emotions of a teenage girl experiencing her first love.
From wariness about Duan Jiaxu regarding the first favor to slowly slipping into a one-sided crush that turns into the first incomplete love, Sang Zhi shows a ray of emotions that are quite mature.
Her understanding of not only the reality of the age gap between her and Duan Jiaxu’s age but also that he would one day find someone closer to his age is shown well.
The words expressing her state of mind when she is a young teenager, struggling to accept that she’s not the one for him, but wants to be, is depicted realistically. She is not one to wear a pair of rose-tinted glasses, carry head-on with her feelings, and confess rashly.
She goes as far as making up an imaginary internet boyfriend to make sure he does not even get an inkling that she likes him. That’s quite hilarious to read.
Duan Jiaxu
Whereas there are chapters that are written from Duan Jiaxu’s POV, which gives us insight into our male lead’s life.
Though he did not harbor any feelings for the young Sang Zhi, all was not well in young Duan Jiaxu’s life either. To see him struggle with all the hurdles life threw at him one after the other and understand where he came from, all the previous interactions with Sang Zhi make more sense.
Throughout his chapters, I was trying to gauge whether he would be a red flag in case he liked Sang Zhi when she was just a teenager, as I was glad that he wasn’t. He didn’t have any romantic interest in her, but he did consider her close to him as she was his best friend's sister.
All his feelings started to grow after she was an adult, and there was no more the shadow of the young, childish Sang Zhi.
So, yes, you can go ahead with this as both our main characters are green flags!
3. Comparing the drama
The drama does justice to the story, adding in little changes here and there as we go.
To point a few- Sang Zhi was in the house when Duan Jiaxu spoke with her father and was overthinking the whole night about convincing Duan Jiaxu to not break up with her, and Sang Yan did not know about Duan Jiaxu’s money loan from their parents since the start (he got to know later) and few more.
But, nevertheless, seeing all my favorite scenes come to life was a treat to my eyes.
I am of course grateful to the added scenes that were not in the book to give a beautiful closure to the drama.
4. The romance between the couple-
The novel shows the age gap as 7 years between the leads, which makes a bit more sense because that could potentially be a questionable age gap for many people.
The drama, however, cuts it down to 5 years, which falls under an okay-ish age gap if it is meant to be an obstacle.
The main hurdle was of course the fact that the leads knew each other since Sang Zhi was just a teen and Duan Jiaxu had tutored her. Makes one's parents and brother give a *bombastic side eye, criminal offensive side eye*.
But, as angelic of a boy as Duan Jiaxu is, it is difficult to picture him so, and thus few parent-boyfriend meetings here and there, a building under the said parents ' daughter's name and more promises to cherish her get the relationship accepted.
Man really went out of his way to make sure to grind and earn so his girl never had to lift a finger for the rest of their precious lives. CEO male leads who? Give me a simple Duan Jiaxu!
Additionally, I loved how the couple solved most of their problems by talking to each other like adults, instead of being petty (until and unless it is supposed to be funny).
Sang Zhi is a headstrong yet smart girl who knows when and what is the right thing to be done and Duan Jiaxu is indulgent to all her whims.
The shift from their platonic meets to the one where they give a relationship a chance, the chapters really make one squeal with joy while swinging your legs.
Where Duan Jiaxu was her first love and first heartbreak, Sang Zhi was his first too. She was the light at the end of the tunnel, a personal star that shined just for him, and spending time together made it all better.
A simple story of an unrequited-love-turned-requited with a brother’s best friend trope, Hidden Love by Zhu Yi is a cute love story.
So, whichever medium you choose, be it the novel, manhua or even the drama, Hidden Love is definitely worth a try.