Book Review: then she found me

Yes, I'm reading the book.  Actually I didn't realize that it's now a movie, despite the list of names across the top of the front cover.  I have no idea what drew me to the book, except the blurb and maybe that cover photo.  At any rate, I found it slow going at first.  I really do not like the character of Bernice G! April Epner, the Latin teacher is my kind of gal, but I assure you that the librarian is not a pretty guy in my mind's eye.  There's an actor whose face I can't see but whose voice is definitely that of Dwight. 

Here's the thing: I haven't finished the book, but I'm well over half way and it's nothing like the movie trailer, which, I assume is like the movie.  I know, not having seen the movie, it's too soon to be upset that it's completely different from the book.  Except, a main character in the novel is Dwight, a tall, shy, high school librarian with whom April has a beautiful relationship.  His name does not appear in the list of credits at all.  What happened to him?  Is he too ugly, too shy, to bookish to appear in the movie or did the director decide to make him into something else altogether?   Strangely enough, April is not married in the novel but is separated from her husband in the movie.  Maybe that's what happened to him....she's married and now separated from Dwight.  But that doesn't work for me either because their relationship is built on trust, friendship, love.....you know, those ideals that make a marriage.  


I find it frustrating that a movie based on a book is not.  Is it too much to ask that something based on something else actually BE like the original?  Is it too much to ask that everyone who has anything to do with a movie based on a book actually READ the book?  I'm thinking it would be really nice if the screen writers read the book!  But that's me, I have high expectations.  I figure that if a writer wants to be creative, he/she should just start at the beginning and write the screenplay based on whatever is in his or her head.  Leave another writer's work intact.


What do you say?  Do you prefer that the movie follow the book closely, or does it matter at all if the movie is so far from the book that a main character does not even appear?