A couple years ago, Jonathan Entwistle adapted Charles S. Forsman’s graphic novel The End of the F***ing World to much acclaim. It was a show about teenagers, with an acerbic, biting sense of humor, dark sensibilities and a tinge of genre. But what it was ultimately about was the aimless desperation and boiling rage inside a pair of teenagers.

Now he’s back with another adaptation of a Charles S. Forsman graphic novel about a teenager with an acerbic, biting sense of humor, dark sensibilities and...well, you get it. I Am Not Okay With This feels, in a lot of ways, just like Entwistle’s last Netflix show. But the devil’s in the details and this show rises above what could be a typical teen show by grounding it in teenage hormones, sexual maturity and those confusing feelings of first love.

It quickly sets the stage with a cold open of Sydney (Sophia Lillis) walking down a dark, empty street. She’s absolutely covered in blood...to the point where it’s impossible to tell what color her dress was supposed to be. Red streaks down her face, chest and arms. She looks shell-shocked. The first words we hear come from a voice over:

“Dear Diary, go fuck yourself.”

In Sydney’s own words, she’s just a boring seventeen-year-old white girl. Nothing special--and she’s okay with that! She moved to this small town in Pennsylvania (“Most polluted air in America!”) two years ago and then last spring, her father killed himself. He didn’t even leave a note.

Since then, Sydney finds herself constantly at odds with her mother Maggie (Kathleen Rose Perkins), who is forced to work sixty hour work weeks at a cafe, picking up extra shifts when she can, to keep the family barely afloat. Sydney’s precocious little brother Liam (Aidan Wojtak-Hissong), meanwhile, draws superhero suits that he dreams about making so he can protect himself from schoolyard bullies. And Sydney, who was incredibly close to her father, is now a mix of boiling rage and simmering hormones with no outlet.

The only time she feels comfortable in her own skin is when she’s sharing milkshakes with her best friend Dina (Sofia Bryant). Partly because she’s never had a best friend before. And partly, maybe mostly, because she feels a deep connection with Dina. One that’s confusing and frustrating, particularly when Dina starts to date the local douche-jock Brad (Richard Ellis). Rounding out our main cast is the goofy Stanley Barber (Wyatt Oleff), who dresses like a waifish barefoot bohemian (“Shoes, who needs ‘em?”) and is introduced saying “What a world we live in Sydney,” with a dramatic bow before he skip-dances away. Stanley is a fey-like presence and has an awkward crush on Sydney, who is obviously more interested in someone else.

As if that’s not enough, Sydney has been going through some weird changes. It begins when Brad slinks into the cafe booth Sydney’s sharing with Dina, swipes her fries and keeps calling Dina “babe.” Sydney starts focusing her anger on him and wants to wipe that smile off his face...and then his nose starts bleeding. Later, a faucet keeps drip...drip...dripping to the point of frustration that she yells, “STOP!” and it does.

“What’s going on with me?” she wonders. “Why do I feel like I’m boiling inside? Maybe I’m more fucked up than I thought.”

The narrative allows Syd to be unlikable and completely relatable...sometimes in the same scene. The tension building between her mother and her, for example, is taut to the point of snapping...but it’s not completely her mother’s fault. Syd is unbearable at times, which is a narrative choice we don’t get to see often with female characters. She’s sarcastic and witty but she’s also kind of that loser character we root for that’s, again, typically given to a male character. She’s complicated and heartless and heartfelt and lovesick and struggling with complicated feelings for her best friend.

Sydney finds herself drawn to the foppish and carefree Stan and he is very interested in her. His presence is very calming, even though “something just didn’t feel right” when she’s with him. Stan is actually the best character in this and it’s nice to see Wyatt Oleff get a meaty, fun role to dig into. He’s the kind of character who loves watching the highschool jocks play football because, he knows this is the pinnacle of their life. “This is as good as it gets for them...Like Hamlet, everything goes to shit in the end. And everyone dies. Best theatre in town,” he explains to Sydney at one point.

Obviously, psychic abilities plus teenage hormones plus a young woman are going to immediately bring to mind Stephen King’s Carrie. And, yes, there’s a bit of that mix of a young woman trying to understand herself and the changes happening to her body, but it’s wrapped up in such a bow of caustic humor that the comparisons quickly vanish. Instead, in a lot of ways, it feels more like a superhero origin story...albeit a very fucked up one. While this season focuses mainly on the romantic square of Sydney, Stan, Dina and Brad, it does offer up some tantalizing story threads for future story arcs. And it has one specific gag that had me absolutely rolling.

I loved I Am Not Okay With This. It’s a unique and fresh take on teen romance and the fact that it has a queer heart beating just below the surface is a blood-soaked cherry on top. Do not miss this one, folks.