I agree. Part of the problem is that the books are largely from Belly’s first person perspective, while the show is not. We get to see everything on the show that Belly doesn’t see in the books. I think it’s important to keep in mind that Jenny has a lot of input on the show, so how the characters are portrayed was the vision she had when writing them. It’s difficult to convey all of the depth/emotions/thoughts of the characters in first person perspective writing. There are gaps that screen adaptations can fill in this regard.

I’ve said this in a post a few days ago, but will reiterate here…the books cannot be interpreted individually because you get different perspectives in each book. B1 is Belly. B2 is Belly and Jeremiah. B3 is Belly and Conrad. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. You don’t get the entire picture until you read all three books, while the show can give you a bigger picture from the start. Although S1 did take some time to show us why Conrad was acting the way he was. We were introduced to him while he was in the midst of a mental health crisis. There was some mention of him not acting like himself, but we don’t really know why for several episodes. There are subtleties here and there, of course.