This is one of those books that you need to stick with because it gets better the more you read. At the beginning, I thought I was going to hate this book as the narrator / protagonist felt so immature and two-dimensional. Why is she so confused about people not fitting perfectly into clique stereotypes and archetypes? Some of the writing felt very much like a high school teen movie, with the jumping to conclusions, the overuse of the miscommunication trope, and the wishy-washy decisions some of the characters choose making the narrative sometimes feel quite juvenile. Certain language and references the author uses does make the narrator relatable as a character, but there was a thin and blurry line between a relatable portrayal and a forced / immature one. (Side note: I'm so glad Perkins left the scene of Anna being bad at football on the cutting room floor! No matter how funny it was to imagine Etienne's arms flopping behind him like fettuccine noodles, I think it would have DEFINITELY been too much of a high school cliche for me to enjoy the book and I may have even DNF'ed it.)

The story picked up and became extremely interesting when the author started diving into the friendships! Despite a few issues I had with the main character's portrayal in the beginning, Stephanie Perkins is pretty good at writing characters. The characters often felt really fleshed out with a use being made of subtleties instead of being extremely explicit; for instance, Perkins paid close attention to St. Clair's nail-biting habit as a way to implicitly show his emotions when he wanted to be more closed off. It was really well done. I'm not going to lie; I fell in love with Etienne after the third chapter. One of Anna's big personality traits was her love for cinema. The movie references Perkins includes felt real and organic, like the character genuinely loved cinema and it wasn't just being used as a measly character device (cough Riverdale cough). Similarly, the comedy in the narrative felt organic between the characters. It was really well placed and didn't feel forced.

Another subtlety I loved was that the author started referring to the love interest by his first name (as opposed to his nickname) when the narrator realised her feeling for him. It felt really personal. It complimented another scene well; the one where he calls her Banana and bought her a banana bead for her collection. This was so sweet and such a powerful choice. Perkins has such a gift for establishing these small but meaningful thing really effectively.