Goshh agreed with everything! The thing you wrote "like the camera - has always been a spectator" makes so much sense!!!
Yessss! I remember talking about this with a friend some time ago. She decided to read it and hated the ending, since it felt "unfair" and Taku deserved better. But to me it was quite obvious (and it is clearer in a second read) who the story is really about and whose story it tries to tell. Even the title kind of gives it away. The story was more about the internal conflict of the MC and his rocky relationship/feelings for his brother than anything else. I love the idea of the unreliablke narrator and Taku as an espectator. Spot on!
omg yes! The title does give away the internal conflict!!
i remember hating it on first read because of how torn and fickle the mc seems to be. but on the second read i know for sure that the ML / joowoon has always loved him from the start, and this sheds light on how the main character is intentionally fickle - he is an UNRELIABLE narrator (damn i’m really employing critical reading skills here). and when i read it in this way (that they have alway loved each other from the start) the story becomes more haunting, especially at halfway mark (around chapter 50) where joowon is no longer in heesoo’s life, wow … you can see how joowon haunted the narrative and have every little things remind heesoo of him. i cant believe an overused premise such as “step brothers” can torn me this much, it was so well written the longing bleeds all over the place.
sure i feel bad for taku! but he - like the camera - has always been a spectator, i do feel like heinserts himself into heesoo’s life because the story of the stepbrothers falling in love is intriguing to him and he wants to know more and of course all that until he doesn’t want to become the man behind the lens anymore and become an active participant, and by that time it was too late because it has alwys been a story between heesoo and jowoon
anyways for such a cliche premise (“b grade romance book” as heesoo said) this is so well written and well drawn … love or hate, you’ll always be famous …