Not gonna lie, the only reason I read Mona Kasten’s novel Save Me (Maxton Hall #1) was because of this

I watched the series on Prime when it first came out and despite the fact that it’s dubbed (from German) it is a swoon worthy masterpiece of teen angst. Damian Hardung (James Beaufort) says more with his eyes than practically any actor I have ever watched.

At the time the first season of the the series came out, the book was not yet available in English. It finally came out this summer and I just finished reading it.

Ruby Bell (played by Harriet Herbig-Matten, also a terrific actor) is a scholarship student at the prestigious private school Maxton Hall. Her dream is to attend Oxford (the story is set in England), and she is smart enough and driven enough to make this happen. She has spent the last two years keeping her head down; she doesn’t really have much in common with most of the uber rich students that attend Maxton Hall anyway.

James Beaufort and his twin sister, Lydia, are part of the upper upper crust. James is heir to the Beaufort company, which makes exclusive menswear and is worth billions. He’s a really good looking jerk. One day, Ruby sees something she wasn’t meant to see and James tries to bribe her to stay quiet. Thus begins their enemies to lovers journey.

I loved every single second of the series. I enjoyed how buttoned down Ruby was – she colour codes her life and is so determined to achieve her dreams. She is principled and kind. James is, on the surface at least, an egotistical jackass who doesn’t have to work hard for anything because of his parents’ money. But there is much more to him than meets the eye, which is why ultimately you root for these two to get together.

The book, sadly, doesn’t add anything to the series. It was nice to picture the characters as they are portrayed on the screen, but I found the book sort of lackluster, tbh. Ruby comes across as sort of ditzy and none of James’s inner turmoil is developed in a meaningful way. The series does a great job of portraying Ruby’s relationship with her family, and that was missing from the book. Some of my favourite scenes in the series are missing from the book.

I didn’t have as many problems with the fact that this is a translation. I often find dialogue stilted, but since this was translated by a British translator, that helped. But where I found so many conversations in the series impossibly angsty and romantic – the book was devoid of this. The one sex scene was kind of insert a into b, whereas on screen it was all the things.

Season 2 comes out on Prime November 7. The second book in the series is out now in English, but I doubt I will be reading it.