After falling in love with "Love, Simon," I was anxious to read this and see how the story came together on the page. What I found was quite disappointing. While the film fleshes out Simon's feelings, questions of Blue's identity, and Martin's blackmailing, I didn't feel that the book delve into anything new. I was surprised that the book starts with the inciting incident of Martin blackmailing Simon and was hopeful it would explore the story more from then on. Instead Simon's perspective from a first person POV is quite flimsy - he hardly describes anyone or anything, most of the dialogue is locked down in arbitrary millennial 'speak', and his personality isn't all that interesting or layered. The same goes for his friends and Martin. With the latter, sometimes Simon would be against Martin and hate him for blackmailing him, and then two seconds, later considering him to be a friend without anything to signify what made him change his mind. On top of which, I felt Simon's sexuality was a conglomerate of random things that might add up to him being homosexual - some of which were cliche like lesbians existing for hot guys on tumblr or Simon's interest in dressing up in women's closing, comments or thoughts weren't treated any deeper than a wave-away narrator. They certainly weren't regarded as anything meaningful having to do with coming to terms with his sexuality or internalized homophobia within the LGBTQ community. In all, I felt like the movie gave this book a personality introducing and exploring moments that were almost non-existent or actually non-existent in the book such as Ethan as the other openly gay character and Simon coming out to his parents. Sometimes adaptations are lost in translation from what the book offers, and I think this time it's the other way around - the movie is far superior.