
Actually…
 
I’ve read the fan-translated English version of this novel that they’ve shared here on Reddit. After watching the live adaptation of Prime Video’s *Maxton Hall: The World Between Us*, my unquenched thirst for this type of story brings me back to the early 2010s of the Wattpad YA romance era.
 
The live adaptation captured my non-European Disney-immersed imagination. A Cinderella-arc story, an elite school that uses European heritage, and a narrative tension of the good old enemies-to-lovers trope.
 
While we get all the good escapist treats that I’ve always enjoyed from the live adaptation when I was in my mid-teens, the original source material is more refreshing than the popular YA Wattpad works of the early 2010s. The story is written by a German writer, and the German critics of the live adaptation saw something in the story as well.
 
Since what I’ve read is the unofficial version, I cannot speak on the technicalities, such as writing. I can only go for the bigger picture of how YA romance of Western pop culture is transposed on the other side of the Atlantic, as the Americans would say.
 
What stands out to me as someone who voraciously consumed Wattpad YA romance during my mid-teens is Save Me’s theme of family, the characterization of Ruby Bell, and the more subtle dynamics when it comes to tension that runs underneath the characters’ interactions toward each other. Ruby Bell is our more updated version of the aspirational good girl who wants to make it right, who wants to stand up for those who are wronged, and who loves the manga *Death Note*.
 
Mona Kasten might as well cue my imagination that she may have read Yoko Kamio’s manga *Hana Yori Dango*, just by the similarities shared between the characters of Ruby Bell and James Beaufort and Yoko Kamio’s Makino Tsukushi and Tsukasa Domjouyi.
 
But of course, in a much more contemporary German way.
 
In the live adaptation, I love how actors Harriet Herbig-Matten and Damian Hardung bring these two to life. The tension and confrontation between them are crackling, taut even, so that at any moment they could snap. But they made me wait and see the entire arc of it under a good amount of restraint.
 
In the book, however, the access to James’s POV tells a layer that is kind of a 180° flip. I guess Hardung owned James Beaufort on the live screen, because by the time I’ve read the book, James Beaufort is actually more of a boy conflicted by a lot of things. He’s also much more sensitive than the rich-ass bad boy that he postures to be and, of course, more direct when it comes to his feelings for Ruby than his status quo could warrant.
 
These things done were not available for 1992 Tsukasa, who can be quite borderline abusive when he bullies Makino while being aware of his feelings for her. The early 2010 Wattpad bad boy can also sometimes be a possessive or a controlling freak that scares the hell out of me if I’ve managed to reread them again.
 
For Save Me to exist, that’s a good YA romance time skip.
 
Themes of domesticity were there too. I love Ruby Bell’s sister Ember, even if her blog uses copyrighted pictures, and Mr. Beaufort snides when it comes to ethical practices. Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Beaufort; not everyone is married to money and legacy like you are. But that girl, Ember, knows fashion and makes them. Not being run down with an iron fist while you put your old-money wife into subjugation.
 
When it comes to themes of family, what is not showcased so much in the early 2010s Wattpad that is showcased here is the fluffiness of having a support system like your family, with parents that sustained a comfortable marital bond while you, a teenager, navigate a jumpstart to catch those big opportunities that are out there meant for your life. Early Wattpad loves drama, so it’s always either some divorced parents, influential parents, or controlling parents. For Save Me, however, Mona Kasten made a dichotomy with Ruby Bell’s wholesome family and James Beaufort’s complicated family.
 
Speaking of complicated, let’s talk about complicated romantic affairs. Between James Beaufort’s sister, Lydia, and their newest teacher, Mr. Sutton.
 
First of all, when it comes to power imbalance and a significant age gap between a minor and an adult, NO.
 
I don’t care how a teenager, Lydia, self-justifies falling in love with a man she had a connection with during summer only to see him become her teacher by fall. NO.
 
To find out she got pregnant by the end of the live series?! By him?!
 
What the fuck?
 
As my brain shut down to anything between Lydia and Mr. Sutton-related is romantic but not, what I can commend for Lydia as a character written by Kasten and played by actor Sonja Weiße is her intelligence and resilience. No matter how many times she was put on the sidelines, Lydia always rose like a phoenix against their father’s constant letdowns. This girl is the best CEO candidate, but blinded by Mr. Beaufort’s rage and patriarchal insecurity, he’d rather cut off his nose than make his daughter Lydia the leader of their mother’s legacy.
 
See the audacity of Mr. Beaufort? He didn’t even own the business in the first place. It was a generational business passed down from his wife’s lineage, who later died.
 
What the hell?
 
Same as when Lydia is constantly dismissed to take over the matrilineal legacy, the narrative might as well kill the mother.

Lydia is not the character you would typically expect as a mean rich girl, like the premise led me to believe. Maybe I’m pop culturally conditioned to think that a sister and the snitch main character would engage in a Y2K-era catfight, where women are pitted against each other to make the story flow. But since this is written by a woman in the post-MeToo era, the tension between Ruby and Lydia is much more nuanced and sympathetic.
 
As I have read, these two can intersect and weave between their conflict, just as well as they diverge to face their own set of struggles. These two young women are written in a different way. Some good points for Kasten here.
 
The only unfortunate thing that happened is that I could no longer access the sequel of the novel *Save You* since I couldn’t find the fan-translated English version. But the good news is that the live series has now released its Season 2.
 
Yay!
 
I’m going to watch that one.

[REVIEW] Save Me by Mona Kasten