Rating: 
Summary: Teen's Review on The Deep End of the Ocean
Review: The Deep End of the Ocean is a emotional novel about the hardships of losing a child. Beth Cappadora is a middle aged woman with a husband and three children: Vincent 6, Ben 3 and Kerry the baby. Beth loses Ben the sunny center of her blissfully normal life at her 15th high school reunion at The Tremont Hotel in Chicago. She goes to the counter to pay for the room and leaves Kerry with her best friend Ellen while her cousin Jill parks the car. She leaves Vincent to watch Ben on the luggage trolley. In the time it takes to sign her name and turn around Ben disappears out of her's and Vincent's sight.Over the next month all of her friends and the police hold searches to find Ben but all come up empty handed. Beth then decides to go back home. When shes at home her husband Pat literally has to drag her out of bed in the morning and Vincent has to take care of Kerry. Pat has a heart attack and Beth ends up cheating on Pat with her first love Nick Palidino. They decide to then move to Chicago so that Pat can open up a resturant out there. One day a boy named Sam Karras comes to mow the lawn. Beth notices he looks like the aged picture of what Ben woudl look like so she takes pictures and gives it to the detective that was assigned to the case. It turns out to be Ben. He gets brought home to live with the Cappadora's and Vincent turns in a troubled teen who ends up getting drunk and crashing a car. He goes to Juvenile Hall and Sam comes to visit him and they talk.
Rating:
Summary: Good pick ...
Review: Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard is a phenomenal book. She is a writing genius. This story will carry you along, you won't even know what happened. Good pick ...!... This story is (obviously) about a 3 year old boy who is kidnapped. Mitchard puts you inside the heads of the mother and the older brother, who tell the story and their thoughts. I really lost myself in this book. I kept thinking about what if I was in their place. How would I feel, what would I do. And it's almost scary to watch this family be torn apart. To watch them deal with things. I even found myself judging the mother and how she reacted to this tragedy. And Vincent the brother, he too has a very hard time dealing with his family. Your heart goes out to this little boy. These characters are so real, so flawed. They're human. It's as if you feel you need to turn your head away, that you're a peeping tom. I think that's what pulls you in, it's just so realistic. ...
Rating: 
Summary: Lots of Potential, but...
Review: This book could have had it all: exciting plot, twists and turns, deep emotion. But alas, it fell short. It was hard to follow and hard to get into.
Rating:
Summary: Could have been great, but...
Review: This book could have had it all: a great plot, twists and turns, tons of emotion. But alas, it fell short.
Rating:
Summary: one of the best books i've ever read.
Review: and thats saying something,as i am a book fanatic.this books rates along side my other favourites including "the lord of the rings trilogy", "the entire harry potter selection",and many classics such as frances hodgson burnetts, "the secret garden" and other such stories. i am largely interested in fantasy stories, but this realism,touched me as not many other books have.
Rating:
Summary: Varied, confusing at times and rushed ending, but excellen!
Review: "The Deep End Of The Ocean" by Jacquelyn Mitchard is one superb piece of fiction. The story is compelling, engrossing and at times quite moving. As a writer myself, I would give just about anything to be able to produce a piece of work this fine. Ms. Mitchard really made me feel as though I were inside the heads of these characters, in particular mother Beth and eldest son Vincent. I couldn't help feeling, however, that Ms. Mitchard had been informed in advance by her publisher -- or had decided herself -- *exactly* how many words or pages the book HAD to contain.
In the beginning of the book, she wrote as though she had all the room in the world, and therefore leisurely elaborated needlessly on details that simply were not essential. I sensed as I was reading it that the life story of the woman whom Beth's high school sweetheart eventually married would have no bearing on the overall plot, and I was correct in that assumption.
Then, Ms. Mitchard took me through seemingly every excruciating detail of the lives of the members of the troubled Cappadora family, especially those of Beth and Vincent. In doing so, she periodically mixed the action of the story with flasbacks to past events that were occurring in either Beth's or Vincent's mind, and she did so in a slightly confusing manner. More than once, I found myself wondering whether I was reading the story's action or just a memory from years earlier which one of the characters was recalling.
About a hundred pages before the end, it seemed as though another writer had taken over. The style, attitude, means of expression and even vocabulary changed significantly and quite noticeably. I was suddenly reading one of Richard Price's witty and sometimes vulgar novels about street gangs instead of this moving, emmotional story about relationships, family ties and a mother's worst nightmare. I didn't mind that in the least, however. Both have their appeal and value for me.
Then suddenly, as though she were working with a sign above her desk which read "Book must end on page 447," Ms. Mitchard brought the story to a screeching and grinding halt. It's not as if I didn't like the way it ended -- I did. It could have been much sadder and a lot more disturbing. I just came away with a lot of questions and the feeling that there should have been more, that something was missing . . . and that Ms. Mitchard had been under pressure to wrap it up in a hurry.
Still, like I said earlier, "The Deep End Of The Ocean" by Jacquelyn Mitchard is one superb piece of fiction. I would recommend it to just about anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book, Horrible Movie
Review: I highly recommend this book, and highly recommend steering clear of the movie-- the filmakers RUINED the story by taking out the best parts and changing the actual reason Ben's brother ended up getting into so much trouble. I do not blame the actors, (I would have loved to see them do many of the left out scenes) but I'd say that if you want to experience this story at it's best, read the book!
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyed on two levels
Review: While the storyline was somewhat predictable I couldn't help but get caught up in the plot and the characters. But the biggest attraction for me was the similiarity with my book, "The Other Part Of Me."
Rating: 
Summary: BLECH!
Review: This book is [bad]. Poorly written, 2-Dimensional characters, and a main character that made me want to gag. This book should be the poster child for "Oprah's Bookclub".
Rating:
Summary: Sad
Review: I can't imagine a worse situation for any Mother than to have one of her children disappear. The author draws you into the midst of this horror and her apt actions and dialogue makes you feel the pain involved. A book you can't help but read in one sitting.
Beverly J Scott author of Righteous Revenge
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