I can genuinely understand why people love this series so much, but I'm also realizing it's not really what I look for. It's a bit too on the nose with what it wants to say. I can't quite suspend my disbelief enough to buy into how the relationships are progressing. 

I understand the focus on positivity, but the main characters all act like semi-perfect people who have never felt the bite of hormones. It's especially jarring in contrast to the adaptation, I think. Tao is a prime example. In the adaptation, he reacts in a pretty predictable way when he finds out that Charlie has been dating Nick, and everyone knows but him. He's sad, and he lashes out in anger, which, to me, is perfectly normal behavior for a teenage boy. In this volume, when he finds out, he's still sad, but he also tells Charlie it was probably the right choice. They both mope about it for a bit, make up, and everything is right as rain. It feels a little bit like forced positivity to me, if I'm being brutally honest.