ThamePo: Heart That Skips a Beat

This is the final in a trilogy of GMMTV BL novels. I say GMMTV specifically because they’re the ones who have released the English versions of them. First there was Last Twilight, then The Heart Killers, and finally we have ThamePo.

The blurb says that Po has just broken up with his boyfriend, Earn, who dumped him because Po isn’t equally successful. For this reason, Po promises himself not to find someone like Earn again. Working as a director on a documentary introduces him to Thame, the leader of the country’s top idol group, Mars, who is about to leave his members for a solo career in South Korea, causing them to disband. Po sees the selfishness of Earn in Thame. But the more he gets to know Thame as a human being, not an idol, the more he realises that Thame is nothing like he first thought he was. Now, Po wants to help Thame smooth things out with his friends, Jun, Dylan, Nano, and Pepper, while also piecing Mars back together. Po falls for Thame, knowing idols aren’t allowed to date… and that his feelings could be a problem for the whole group.

I remember watching the show, and while Thame and Po were the main couple, people went absolutely feral for Dylan and Jun (played by Hong and Nut respectively (I’m also saying these names on the context the people reading this know who Hong and Nut are lol)) so much so that when GMM got, I think it was a product placement for a hair dye, they literally added in scenes at the very end of the show specifically to be flirty for Jun and Dylan. And I’m pretty sure it’s the reason that Nut and Hong were in the Twenty One 21 trailer in GMMTV 2026. I also remember the show being a good representation of fans and stans and how their ratty behaviour ruins these idols’ lives. I’m very much of the mind, of having a developed brain, that I’m not about to be dating these idols – they don’t care about me like that, I’m not parasocial with them – so truly, if it comes out they’re dating someone, good for them. It’s like Stray Kids, they’re one of my ult k-pop groups, but I don’t care if they’re dating people. They’re all in their 20s. If they want to be dating people, I hope that they are. And that goes for any idols for me. Being an idol is a job at the end of the day. I’m not about to walk into a bookshop and care whether the person checking me out at the till is in a relationship or not, my consumption and time in the bookshop isn’t affected by that, like how my consumption of idol music and content isn’t affected by whether the idol is dating someone who isn’t me.

Pemika, the CEO of Mars’ company, is the villain, but at the same time, she doesn’t do anything with malicious intent. Everything she does is down to what’s best for the company. She’s just running it the way she should. That’s what’s so frustrating about her. Yes, she is the antagonist, but at the same time, everything she’s doing makes sense. Even after Thame and Po break up (let’s not forget this is a BL book and so many of the couples break up before getting back together at the end) she literally promotes Po to a full on director – his dream job – because he did such a good job on the music video for Mars behind her back. Never mind the fact she fires him at well, not the point, she does that because he’s so intent on seeing Thame after she all but gets him to dump Thame. Like, sister, I know you’re in charge of a record label, but it’s not that deep (even though it literally is for her job).

This book definitely suffered the same issues as Last Twilight and The Heart Killers of the translation feeling like it was very literal. I know in the other posts, or the Last Twilight one definitely, that tone, intonation, and just voice in general will get lost in translation. I’m going to say the same thing I’m sure I said in that post: If you’re reading something in your native language, you’re going to pick up on, for example in English, sarcasm, jokes, things like that. This book definitely suffered from that. It was very much, “Here are the words on the page, take what you want from them.” If I were to have read this book not watching the show (although, I can’t imagine anyone doing that, unless they got an e-book) I’d have dropped it for sure. Like the other two, is the quality of the writing that comes across the best? Absolutely not. But I feel as though you’re buying these books because you’re already a fan of the shows.

I think the content from book to show was more or less the same, minus the JunDylan scene with the hair dye sponsor the show got. But I do think that the show managed to show off the characters better. I think Pepper was the only one that really had any kind of plot in the book, outside of Thame and Po, and the rest of the members were really only present back when Po was recruiting them back to Mars in the first place. They were definitely there throughout the book, but that’s kind of what it felt like, they were just there. Shockingly, since Thame and Po were the leads, you got more of them – more of Po, I feel like, even though the POV shifted between them. As a very brief aside, I do feel like BLs – whether shows or books – do tend to favour one of the leads over the other. Even though they were both in their 20s, I felt as though Po was more worldly, and mature, even though he wasted years of his life with Earn. You do find out that he quits pursuing his own life so that Earn can make an app, which is wild. All of that for a tech bro. One thing that definitely worried me was the case of Earn dumping Po because they weren’t equally successful, and then that was going to lead into the whole thing of only being able to have a happy life if you’re rich and work a big important job. I was very grateful that it didn’t follow that, essentially because Po, if you ignore the fact that he ends up with Thame in the end, ends up fat, broke, and nasty, still working part-time in the suit shop he starts the book at. I was just so relieved for him that it was just finding good love that was making him happy. Finding the right person. Someone who supports him no matter what he did.

Now you wouldn’t believe it, but the second part of that paragraph was meant to be me talking about Po and Thame as characters. Oops! Anyway, where Po’s plot was all about learning to be okay where you are if you’ve got the right things (or that’s what I got), Thame’s was more about following his dreams his way. That’s something you see a lot with people who want to be singers so badly that they end up in terrible recording contracts with labels that won’t support them, just because they won’t make money. I think Raye is a really good recent example, and honestly, even Kesha and Marina, now that I think about it. All three of them released music independently. And that’s more what Thame was after, to be able to be a part of Mars with the people he loved. In a shock, the BL book was in part about different types of love. Romantic, family, and idol and fan.

Overall, would I have ever finished this book had I not been a fan of the show. Absolutely not. Once again, like the other GMMTV BL books I’ve read, I think all of the voice and character did get lost in translation. I think these books are kind of more of a merch thing than an actual book.

Okay, bye!