Changing the appearance of characters or minor plot lines would not have bothered me. But not only was it not the same story, it was a really really bad story with a braindead plot. I read the book before my daughter and her friends did and we were all miserable after seeing it. Our hopes were completely dashed. The names of the characters were the same but that was all. It was a bad movie made with the character names and general setting of the book. I wouldn't have liked it even if I hadn't read the book.