Rating: 
Summary: Don't pay money for this book or you'll regret it.
Review: "The Deep End of the Ocean" is not the worst book I've ever read, but it's a huge disapointement. Oprah must have been catering to readers who don't expect much from a book except an interesting story. Even that much is questionable. I believe that even the author thought there was more in the book than there really is, and she tries to convince the reader as much. I got the feeling that she was writing about issues that she was highly underqualified to write about. Psychotherapy and psychology are not fields that just anyone can detail accurately, believably, and realistically. She falls short on all three. The story was interesting and did keep me going, but the plot and the writing had so many faults that I found myself wishing that I hadn't bent any pages so that I could discretley return the book for full value. This is definately one of those books that you check out from the library. And even then only on a lazy summer day when you really have nothing better to do.
Rating: 
Summary: FACE REALITY
Review: The Deep End Of The Ocean describes the ordeal a family has to go through when 3 year-old Ben disappears without a trace, only to appear nine years later, as a stranger to the family and vive versa. Unlike other fiticious works (which is exactly the reason that makes the novel rather a struggle to finish), which usually have a hero/heroine or two whom we admire and respect, there is nothing likeable about the character at the centre of this story ( I mean Beth of course). As a fiction, I find the book too long and draggy. However, it does offer an impressive insight to the complex web of thoughts of the characters - of the mother who losses her son twice - the first time physically, and the second, emotinally; of the brother (vincent) who feels responsible for the loss; and of Ben himself, who has to learn to accpet and be accepted by a family he does not know. This is definitely not a feel-good novel, rather it tells us some harsh realities - time does not heal all wounds and absence does not make hearts grow fonder.
Rating: 
Summary: A Big Disappointment
Review: The cover and the title and Oprah drew me in. But I do not understand what all the hype is about! The characters are predictable, the story is not well written, and the end dragged on and on. I only finished it because I like to finish everything I read. I had hoped it would get better at the end, but it only got worse and worse.
Rating: 
Summary: A simply great book!
Review: I read this book a year and a half ago when it was first published in hardcover. It is a wonderful, well-written book and I am amazed at some of the negative comments. The fact that it has inspired such debate makes it a very important novel. I didn't like Beth either, but she was so human! Who is to say how a mother should act over the loss of a child? And the family and marriage were so real, especially her husband, Pat, who I fell in love with (and did anyone else think he was having an affair at one point in the book?) Also, my heart broke over her inability to love Reese because she felt as though she was betraying Ben to do so. As any mother of more than one child who is honest with herself will admit, you don't always love your children all the same. You may simply love them in different ways and for different reasons. Anyone who wants to read trite, happy books books should stick to Danielle Steele! I look forward to Jacqueline Mitchard's next novel.
Rating:
Summary: Get it at the library
Review: I bought this at a second hand bookstore and I'm glad I did. I thought I must be the only one who didn't like it until I read the reviews below. The cover is enticing and I'd never tried one of Oprah's books before, but I couldn't even finish it. It's still on the bookshelf waiting to go back to the second hand bookstore
Rating:
Summary: I'm glad Beth was never my mother.
Review: I can proudly (or sadly) say I made it to page 356 of this wretched novel - it was an exercise in discipline. Trudging through quicksand would have been more exiting. By this time, I didn't care what happened to any of the characters, with the possible exception of Reese. It was depressing to reach this stage of the book, as it felt like the story had concluded, and yet I saw that I still had over 100 pages to go. Torture in the extreme. What could she possibly have had more to add to this poorly written and utterly improbable story. If you should find yourself stranded on a desert island and this is the only thing to read - build sand castles. I would not only question Oprah's recommendations, but this book only proves that critics often don't have a clue.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Waste Your Money and Time
Review: I give this book a 2 for the first chapter or so. It kept my attention somewhat, but then dragged on and on. Plus, Beth is so self centered and unlikeable. What a depressing story! There was not one redeeming quality. I counldn't wait for this book to end.
Rating:
Summary: The horrror of losing a child!
Review: When Beth Cappadora goes to her high school reunion it all happens. One minute he's their the next he's gone. Her three year old son Ben is missing. The search lengthens and lengthens. But Beth still believes that he is alvive years pass. She wastes away her life. Her other children need her desperatley. She is abandoning them. Will she finally realize that she needs to forget it? Will she ever find Ben the little lost boy? Hope seems to be lost but then something remarkable happens!
Rating: 
Summary: A compelling and promising first novel.
Review: Readers (including myself) enjoy identifying with and admiring the protagonist of a novel. This, however, is not the pleasure that Jacquelyn Mitchard offers us in her first, The Deep End of the Ocean. Instead she invites us to enter into the mind of a woman whose depression and passivity nearly destroys her family. This is a demanding task for writer and reader alike, and, in the end, well worth the effort. The central character Beth does grow from her experience; she does finally realize what she has done, even if she neither quite knows what to do with this knowledge nor becomes suddenly and entirely selfless. For she gives her younger son Sam a freedom and respect that her supposedly more perfect husband Pat would selfishly deny. Her growth and response is like the novel itself--sad and only mildly uplifting, and yet promising, human, and true. The writing is compelling, although the surface language is sometimes clunky. Some readers will find the plot implausible. I, for one, found it gripping and credible. Only the appearance of the second red sneaker was too much to swallow and (in retrospect) inconsistent with the presumed perpetrator's mental and physical condition at the time.
The novel has only one serious flaw: the two-dimensionality of the father Pat. We are told that in anger he once punched his fist through wood paneling and that he may have been unfaithful to Beth. But telling is not showing and is unsatisfying. Moreover, since we are allowed inside Beth's head and that of her older son, why not Pat's as well? Not knowing why he puts up with Beth, I found Pat to be something of a chump, martyr, wimp, paragon of patience, saint, doormat, and perhaps like Beth, a lonely, unhappy, and adulterous sneak--but who can say for sure? Writing the novel mostly from Beth's point of view (third person) seems appropriate, but Pat's cipherdom gives the novel that empty, one-sided feel of a world not fully imagined. It is well-imagined, but not as fully as it might have been.
There is much to admire, to enjoy, and to reflect upon in this first novel. It is as disturbing as life itself. We can safely experience Beth's world without becoming depressed ourselves, participate in the outer trappings of a "very Italian" family, their relationships, and their over-the-top restaurant, and in the characters of the older son Reese and his therapist catch a truly satisfying glimpse of competence and dedication, and of pain, struggle, and progress--however messy and nonlinear all this may inevitably be.
Rating:
Summary: It was mesmerizing
Review: This was a good book. I am the kind of person who would rather wait for the movie to come out (and they are filming the movie right now!), but decided to go ahead and read it.
I read the entire book in three days. I'll admit the "Beth" chapters were sometimes a little hard to get through, but it made me read that much faster to get to the "Reese"(Vincent) chapters. If the author had made more of the Beth chapters into Reese chapters this would have been a ten. I really felt for Reese, who felt personally responible. I like the chapters with him at the shrink discussing it all. Whereas I wanted to slap self-centered Beth who could not see what she was doing physiologically to her two remaining children, especially Reese (who blamed himself).
The ending was a little dispointing (I which the authos would have elaborated a little more on Sam's *real* homecoming), but it left you to think for yourself what could have happened the next morning week or year...
A good book, I recommend it!! (And I can't wait to see the movie!)
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