The Deep End of the Ocean

Rating:
Summary: Don't Waste Your Time
Review: Although I found the beginning of the book extremely interesting and disturbing, it became rambling and dull. The plot is ridiculous and I found myself skipping pages to get to the end. Don't waste your time

Rating:
Summary: beautiful!
Review: Mitchard's "The Deep End of the Ocean" is a real masterpiece. The story itself engages the reader from the first page, and Mitchard's prose is well-crafted and insightful. Not quite poetry, but something close. Her dialog, for instance, is extremely realistic. I enjoyed this book from the first page to the last. I'm looking forward to Mitchard's next novel, because I've found myself a great author

Rating:
Summary: A stunning understanding of the human condition.
Review: Not only was I thoroughly engaged in the story, but I was totally enmeshed in the psychology of the characters and the family. The author has an incredibly keen understanding of these issues...the complexity of our inner selves and the neurotic dances that comprise relationships

Rating:
Summary: This book just plain sucked!
Review: There is no other way to say it: This book just plain sucked! The main character, Beth, was utterly unlikable. A mother myself, I should have been horrified and sympathetic of a woman faced with the loss of a child, but I simply did not care. I _did_ read the whole book--I am not sure why; perhaps I was holding out hope for its' inprovement

Rating:
Summary: And you thought Ben went into the "deep end"???
Review: I came to read this book because so many people told me how engrossing it was. I guess I somehow missed the boat. If the author's intent was to provoke, then she achieved her goal. I was enraged by Beth, the self-absorbed woman indentified as the missing child's mother. It seems as if she never wanted her children in the first place..just some pretty, well-behaved, charming things to show off when it didn't interfere with her "woe, is me" routine. This is evident in her neglect of the first born child, Vincent. I never once expected a happy ending to this drama..just some growth on Beth's part would have been satisfying and would have provided some hope that her remaining son would not be in jail within ten years. Tragedy shows us sides of people that we cannot imagine nor can we understand. It is hope that gives us the strength to try

Rating:
Summary: A sad, heavy book with no ending
Review: I can't remember the last time I read a book whose main character I disliked more than I disliked Beth. I couldn't quite decide if her emotional paralysis was caused by the loss of her child - one of three who saw little affection from her - or by her "poor me" syndrome. I was compelled to read on because I really wanted to know what happened to Ben, but when I found out, I felt cheated. Oh yeah, right. This was totally missed by the police for nine years. And the second red shoe - a little much. Now about that ending? Um, did the author forget to write it, or did she get bored with this book, too? All in all, an unsatisfying, unsettling book

Rating:
Summary: A story that touches on real life situations!
Review: The reader quickly becomes emotionally involved in Jacquelyn Mitchard'ds remarkably personal story of a family nearly torn apart by the kidnapping of their three-year-old son, Ben. Ben disappears while waiting with his older brother, Vincent, in a busy hotel lobby where his mother, Beth, friends, and classmates have gathered for their fifteenth high school reunion.
The turbulent range of feelings that carries the reader deeper and deeper into each individual family member's heart cannot be explained--they can only be felt. Each family member's feelings are misinterpreted as each enters a private world of pain which they cannot begin to explain or share, and they find themselves wrestling alone with the mysterious disappearance of Ben. Vincent hides his feelings of guilt and struggles alone through adolescence as a juvenile delinquent. Ben's father, Pat, blindly buries himself in the family's restaurant business. And, forgotten baby Kerry becomes the responsibility of a babysitter.
Rating:
Summary: um, ew.
Review: a lot of people who really loved this book kind of railed at those who didn't. obviously i'm one who'd get railed at. but here's my reasoning: the plot, at first is decent, but becomes contrived. i mean, they accidentally find the kid living next door after years? in real life, maybe a miracle, but in a novel, a plot strut. but that i could forgive, if it stood alone. however, the prose is also overly sentimental and so, meandering (some famous guy said that to be sentimental is to give something more love than god does, but mothers are prone to that type of thing, so again, i could forgive). but then i find that all the characters are stereotyped, especially the teenage son, which being a teenager myself i especially took offense to. so far, we've got a contrived plot, stereotyped (so not developed characters), and weak prose. i ask of you, what else is there to a novel?? i know this book is supposed to make you feel all happy and trusting inside, that warm little glow in the core of your body, but when the purpose is so transparent, it defeats itself. i finished the book because i never leave a book unfinished, but at the end i was still unsatisfied

Rating:
Summary: Not actually my kind of book but....
Review: I don't have children and at the end of the summer I was hesitant to read a book so obviously based on personal pain and tragedy. I started reading at 8 p.m. one night expecting to read a little every night before bed for a few weeks. By 4 a.m. I had INHALED the book. My one complaint would be that at the end of each chapter it was absolutely impossible to put this book down. Besides being a page turner, the novel has some of the most well crafted prose I have ever seen.

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time
Review: I haven't read a book in years that I disliked as much as this one. I never would have finished it except that my book group was reading it and I felt guilty that I had no sympathy or empathy for these people who had suffered such a tragedy. I felt cheated that the author took such a serious topic and didn't do any more with it. The writing was terrible as well. The book might have some value for writing instructors who need examples of bad prose. I'm going to go read some Jane Austen to flush this experience out of my head.

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