| Director | Avid Liongoren |
|---|---|
| Genre | romantic comedy |
| Runtime | 94 min |
| Country | Philippines |
Marty is an amateur comic book artist who sees the world around him as a vivid picture book and also sees most people he dislikes or is indifferent to as monsters. When he was still a high school sophomore, Marty was often picked on by a bully until Sally, a gadget inventor intervenes and later helps Marty exact revenge by humiliating the bully in public. The two immediately become best friends, and as time passed, Marty develops an attraction for Sally, but such feelings remained unrequited.
As Marty spends time with Sally, he learns that her adoptive parents are strict and suspects that she is being physically abused by them. Sometimes Sally excuses that she is busy with a "secret project". The two develop a system utilizing a high-powered telescope and a codebook of signals using clothes, which enables them to interact than what Sally's parents would allow. After graduating from high school during the summer, Sally and Marty decide to attend the same college together as fine arts students. Marty receives a call from a comic book publisher, Renegade Komiks, and gets an opportunity to pitch a comic storyline from the eyepatch-wearing editor Toto. While the two are in a swing at the park near dusk, Marty yet attempts to reveal his feelings for Sally; Sally, however, reveals that she is in a relationship with Nick, whom Marty views as a dickhead and a monster.
Marty presents his pitch to Renegade Komiks. Stuck with his initial comic concept, Marty presents a new story to Toto which is about an astronomer who dedicates his life to a girl abducted by aliens in a prison, which is inspired by his own experiences with Sally, her parents, and Nick. While initially averse to publishing a love story, Toto decides to give it a try; the comic was a success on release.
Nick invites Marty to a rave party. Marty gets drunk, talks to a girl who compliments Nick as a friendly guy, and sees the girl dance with Nick. At Nick's car, he tells Marty his intention to wed Sally. Sally asks Marty to buy art supplies one day, and the two spot Nick dating the girl Marty met earlier across the street. Marty and Sally argue in Marty's room, and Sally finds Marty's secret drawings of her. Marty suddenly admits his feelings toward her, but Sally says she is not ready to commit to a relationship. Marty succumbs to depression and drew grim drawings, compiles them into his "Book of Sad" and sends it to Sally.
The two grew distant from each other as they both entered college; Sally had another boyfriend and Marty had a girlfriend. Nevertheless, fate continued to set them up with each other, until one day when Sally approached Marty and asked him to autograph her copy of the comics he wrote. Sally says she plans to sell the comics with his autograph when he becomes famous. Sally reveals that she broke up with her boyfriend and Marty said that his girlfriend has emigrated to Australia. Sally later sends a "Book of Happy" to Marty, an interactive pop-up book depicting their adventures, to cheer him up. Noticing a small reproduction of their old codebook containing instructions to open the book in reverse, Marty realizes that the book also functions as a flip book, which is Sally's attempt to tell him that she now returns his feelings.
This rejuvenates Marty's feelings for Sally and immediately goes to her house, but he overhears her parents physically beating her. Marty knocks on the door and sees her with a bruise on her mouth, which Sally explains was caused by an accident. Marty refuses to accept the explanation, deducing the real cause of her bruise were her parents, and he urges Sally to run away from her abusive parents. He and Sally go to her room to get her belongings and successfully escape her parents as they chase them upon leaving the house.
Sally brings Marty to a dumpster where she reveals the "secret project" that she worked on: a hideout full of gadgets with her secret project revealing to be a rocket that she planned to use to escape but no longer needs to. Marty continued working for Renegade Publishing and used that money to lend to Sally to rent her apartment which she later paid back with money she earned from her photo exhibit. They both graduate and continue their relationship together