This was sooooo cringe. The only redeeming quality was its ending: SpoilerI wish more queer romcoms had bittersweet endings instead of shoehorning in a happily-ever-after. The character development was fine, if a little underwhelming. The MCs seem more fully realized in the final third, but for most of the first two acts, they become grating after a while because there's no real conflict. In most other romcoms there's some tangible roadblock to the relationship, and here the roadblock is just ~the universe~ which is a copout and gets tiresome after the 900th time the characters draw reference to how the universe wants them to be together, except for when it doesn't. So instead Albertalli and Silvera are constantly working overtime to create character conflict, when really some stronger character development work could've seen natural rise to these conflicts. The dialogue was a little frantic and too try-hard at times, dropping innuendoes where they didn't really belong. And don't get me started on the supporting characters. Flat as a wall, added nothing to the story. This has been an issue for the last few queer romcoms I've read, but it seems like it's all just too nice. As if by the nature of the story being YA, the authors shouldn't add in any struggle and instead just write an overly aestheticized Pinterest board-of-a-novel where it's all very vivid but nothing actually happens. Please, I'm begging you, give these characters depth, more than "he's very smart and he's in summer school, so they're different!" or "he's working class and he's rich, so they're different!" – these are not sufficient character flaws. Despite my overlong grievances with this book, Albertalli and Silvera did stick the landing. Not sure if I want to read the sequel because sometimes the universe that doesn't tell you the ending is the best universe.