This is one of the prime examples of what happens when screenwriters take a great book and for some unknown reasons change a great deal of the plot. The Alison in the book was a shy, quiet, gawky teen - this Alison is relatively confident and beautiful. The Selena in the book is described regularly as a dark, gypsy-ish looking girl - Hope Lange, who plays her, is a blonde. The Selena in the book had no speaking relationship with her father, but the movie actually opens up with his apologizing to all for his drinking behavior - something he did not do ONCE in the book! The poor schoolteacher - what happened to her role and personality from the book? It's nonexistent. The character in the movie has nothing to do with the character in the book. At the very beginning of the movie, she has a conversation with Lucas Cross that NEVER could have taken place in the book. Mr. Rossi, one of the central characters, opens his role in the movie in a completely different fashion than the book depicts. In other words: watch this very, very soapish opera and poorly done translation - as long as you're not expecting to see the book, in movie form. SO many books have this happen. And amazingly, the movies that are the best, are those that stick to the plot line as closely as possible, in as reasonable a way as possible (see: The Godfather!). There really wasn't any reason to change the book as much as they did. I have no clue what the screenwriters were thinking. This movie is a very, very thinly veiled "cover" of the book. It was terribly disappointing, after really loving the book. Unless you haven't read the book, DON'T SEE THIS MOVIE!