I really like that the story focuses on max perspective so we can't know most of the times what other characters are thinking, I think this is what makes the story so good, that it's relatable, just like in real life, you can't know wether someone likes you or not, you can just make guesses about what they think of you, and in cases like this we're all like max, we get happy over hearing nice things like that but get confused at the mixed signals, the story has a natural flow and I really love that