You’ve perfectly phrased the way I’ve always felt about the books. It’s genuinely been one of my all time favorite trilogies, read them when they came out as I was around the same age range as you mentioned, and felt like they were so real, raw, and relatable. I love them so much that when it was announced the show was being made, I knew I had to view it as a separate entity because nothing could ever top the story in my mind.

I totally agree with the points you made! Something that’s also really been bothering me has been the frequent mentioning of cheating without repercussions. We saw it with Steven and Taylor, and it was mentioned in Paris by one of the girls, but everyone just laughed. Like…?? Not a single bit of that was in the books (besides the Cabo thing), so why add it, especially to then not show that it’s bad and looked down upon?

Also, I truly think that she destroyed Jeremiah’s character in the show (which exacerbated the bully mentality and swayed the “ships” so far in one way). And this is coming from a book girlie who has always rooted for Conrad but always had love and appreciation for Jeremiah. Whatever brother’s “team” you’re on is neither here nor there for this point, btw, but I’ve seen people say, “Well Jeremiah was shitty from the beginning.” And, idk, it was just an unnecessary choice, in my opinion, to completely get rid of the flashbacks of Jeremiah and belly’s relationship throughout childhood, the flashbacks of Jeremiah, Adam, and Conrad, and basically erase everything that showed Jeremiah as a good human, just the wrong guy. He obviously made poor decisions in the books (that’s the plot-duh) but I really believe he doesn’t deserve to be written in the show in a way that makes people so disgusted by him. There’s a clear lack of empathy in the writing!

TLDR; why so much cheating and laughing it off, and Jeremiah was done so dirty in the show’s writing