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The Deep End of the Ocean |
List Price: $16.95
Your Price: $16.95 |
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Product Info |
Reviews |
Rating: Summary: A story of love, hate, desperation and rebirth Review: Beth is not a woman who you will feel for. She worries more about the slightest hair out of place than she does about her children bickering in the backseat during a roadtrip. The story starts off harmless enough with Beth and her three children and the live in babysitter taking a trip into the big city for a high school reunion. What happens next can only be described as a parents worst nightmare. Her youngest son is missing!
This book is absolutely the best novel I have read in a very long time. Though it is difficult to relate to Beth, you can't help but feel for her ever suffering husband, neglected children and in particular, her rebellious and somewhat charming son "Reese".
If you read one novel this summer, make it "The Deep End of the Ocean".
Rating: Summary: realism's gripping if scary for us in our safe little worlds Review: I love the title of this book. The image and the circumstances of the phrase within the story are beautiful and mind-catching. The description and style of the novel is admirable, particularly through the first half of it. Mitchard's characters are, for the most part, very vivid, but usually less than comforting. Beth is a definitely uncomfortable character, and Reese/Vincent, though often more personable, is sometimes less appealing. Though these may not be characters to adopt, pull into your heart and keep for good, they are definite realism; they make you squirm in your seat and wish that you didn't see yourself and people you know in their raw and sometimes shocking actions and emotions. The most satisfying events frequently fail to happen, or else happen in ways you would never imagine. When I read this book, I wanted desperately to put it down, and yet at the same time was afraid to. I felt somehow that if I set it down, the events and characters would continue on without me, and I would miss it. Again at the same time, I felt that it would be terribly cruel to leave the characters frozen in the moment that I set them down--it would only be fair to continue reading and keep them from any more of the awful suspense. I have felt more satisfied by some other books when I finished them, but it was most definitely worth the read
Rating: Summary: Overrated but shows occasional flashes of real talent Review: The primary handicaps to this book are the
characters of Beth and her husband, and the
unbelievably lazy, clunky plot device that brings the lost child back into their lives. Beth's self-absorbtion is pushed to the limit,
and the way that Ben is brought back was
a real groaner.
The character of Vincent/Reese is one of the
book's greatest assets. I think Mitchard's
characterization of him is utterly convincing, to the point where I looked more forward to the chapters told from his point of view than his
exhausting mother. You almost wish someone
would kidnap HIM to get him out of that emotionally sterile household. I hope Mitchard will consider writing her next
book completely from the point of view of
a disenfranchised adolescent boy. She might
have it in her to pen a worthy companion to "Catcher in the Rye".
As for Oprah's taste in books, I think she got
better at picking them after this middling
start
Rating: Summary: the unexamined life is not worth living . . . . Review: It's been several months, maybe longer,since I read this book, and I have recommended it to several friends. Just for fun, I decided to scan through the Amazon reviews. I have to say that I'm surprised by the number of people who loathed this book--I thought it was excellent. But what one person judges as excellent, another might not.
Consider this--it has to do with expectations and with genre. A great deal of popular fiction out there today is series and genre, and I don't just mean the romances. Consider Cornwell and Grafton, DeMille and Clancy, Jonathan Kellerman and Elizabeth George, Koontz, Cook, and King. And almost every third novel I pick up in a library or bookstore is "a such-and-such mystery." What most (not all) readers want is predictability and comfort--that's why Grafton's Kinsey Millhone (sp) only owns one dress. So when confronted with a book for which no pattern exists, the reader is uncomfortable. And there is nothing wrong with wanting to be comfortable, to have predicable, likable characters just like you. The world is an unpredicable place--we might as well be comfortable when we read for pleasure. But, before criticizing a book that doesn't fit a preconceived notion of what a "good book" is, at least own up to what it is you want from your reading experience. P.S. The descriptions of the restaurant alone make this a great book!
Rating: Summary: This book left me horrified but mesmerized Review: I couldn't believe how dramatically this book affected me as a mother, thinking of all the times that I had looked the other way when my three children and I were in a crowded place. The story was completely believable in the way it turned out -- I can see that a child thus far removed from his or her birth situation would be a very difficult "recovery." The only thing that was repetitious and not all that believably-described was her relationship with her husband. Having lived in Chicago, I absolutely loved the descriptions of the old neighborhoods, reunions of families who have known each other for generations -- and I'd love to go to that restaurant
Rating: Summary: Well written, emotional, yet lacking reader satisfaction Review: After reading some of the reviews for this book I found that some readers loved this book, while others detested it. I'm somewhere in the middle. I read the book though not quickly. While the book is very well written in my opinion and the subject matter very emotional, I did not find this to be and easy read, or one that I just "couldn't put down." While I felt for Beth and the rest of the family, and the authour clearly let me experience her pain and numbness, I kept waiting for Beth to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING!! It seemed as if there should have been a point within the decade that Ben was missing that she would have become somewhat proactive in getting involved with the search for her lost son or return some attention of any kind to her husband and other children. I felt like she was a walking zombie and at some point she would snap out of it at least to a degree where she would be a living human being again. Though I can only imagine the pain that would be caused at the loss of a child, at some point life would begin again to some degree. Maybe I'm being to insensitive, I certainly don't mean to be, but the precious children that she still had in her life should be awarded some motherly love and should be appreciated. Thank God for Candy. At least she added some color and humor to the story which was greatly needed. Vincent was a good and interesting character to follow. I felt his pain more than Beth's. Even though he closed off, as a result of being closed off, he was a character of action and growth. I looked forward to reading the sections dedicated to his thoughts and experiences. He was the most victimized by the experience in my opinion. I'm glad I read it but I'm also glad to be finished. Average book in my opinion
Rating: Summary: Doesn't deliver on expectations it creates. Review: Deep End of the Ocean is written a little too sensitively for my taste. It starts out engrossingly, with the disappearance of a three-year-old boy. But it peters out, and the seemingly relentless story takes the reader nowhere in the end
Rating: Summary: I kept reading because I had to find out how it would end. Review: I was certainly disappointed in this book because I had heard it was so good and it was on the best seller list. I kept waiting for more substance but if it was there I really didn't see it. It was a very emotional book that seemed to show a family in destruction. Beth seemed to me a woman who did in fact look for things to be miserable about. I really kept expecting more but didn't get it
Rating: Summary: Don't listen to Oprah! Review: This book is 456 pages too long...or however long it is
Rating: Summary: Extremely Disapointing Review: I only kept reading this book thinking it has to get better, but unfortunately it never did. What amazes me is that I kept on reading it, for what I have no idea. There was nothing of redeeming value in the story or the characters, couldn't relate to any of them, and didn't even care to. It was a waste of time. There are very few books I can't get into, but this one was just bad and boring as hell
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