When first hearing that one of my favorite Young Adult novels from 2018 was hitting the big screen, I was beyond excited. The book was a great love story — not only with diverse characters, but tackling issues of immigration, which is a topic that teenagers themselves don't normally have to deal with directly. What was great about the novel, with it's switching points of views with not just the main two characters, is that it shows that everyone — even minor characters — had their own stories and reasons (although they may be unknown to other characters) as to why they chose to do or say certain things that happened within the book. In fact, it's these points of view that made the original story unique.

The movie failed to capture all these points of view.

While the movie was great about delivering the storyline of the main two characters, and the chemistry of the actors was great, the ending was mostly re-written and differed from the book to make it more, frankly, cliché and typical Hollywood. For example, when compared to the book, they re-wrote an entire character's storyline and made the character seem like a beacon of hope or even wisdom, whereas the book objectively paints them as a villain of sorts.

The movie does do a lot of things right though, mostly by representing the diversity and background of the characters, as well as choosing settings around New York City that aren't just the typical romantic comedy places such as Central Park, Times Square, or really anywhere in Downtown Manhattan. Seeing the city through the eyes of these characters did make a difference in the story, but I wish that the director could have chosen to stay more true to the intricacies of the novel, which is what made many people fall in love with the story anyway.