Rating: 
Summary: Quite simply, the best novel I've read this year.
Review: This is the first book I've read by Jacquelyn Mitchard. The subject matter of Deep End of the Ocean, while fascinating, was simply too horrific to me. I'll admit that I came to this novel with some trepidation. The public is constantly inundated with claims that new writers are undiscovered treasures and their new improved first books are sure-fire bestsellers. Usually those books and those writers are marginal at best. Well, I was blown away by The Most Wanted. The prose was absolutely brilliant, the structure superb, the story spellbinding, and the characters deeply layered and utterly real. It's the first book in months that I've gone to sleep thinking about and then rushed to read in the morning. As a multi-published author myself, I cannot imagine the performance pressure that Ms. Mitchard labored under in the creation of this book. It staggers the imagination...and then to pull off a book of such brilliant insights. It's nothing short of remarkable. ! I would urge anyone who reads Hoffman, Tyler, Siddons, Berg: Run--don't walk--to the bookstore and buy this book. You won't be sorry.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: An excellent read. Suspensful, romantic, sexy at times and realistic. If I can learn as much about life, people, and love in my entire lifetime that Arley learn in her short 14 years, I'll be both grateful and certainly much wiser. The best part about this book is that it reaches such a broad range of readers -- teenagers, adults, men, women. . . . This is the second book by Mitchard that I've read (The Deep End Of The Ocean was the first -- loved it!), can't wait for her next one!
Rating:
Summary: Mitchard is improving.
Review: To me The Most Wanted is more the story of how a girl becomes a woman, able to plan for a meaningful future and take action to make that future happen, than it is (as the jacket says) "a romance." True, you have the tale of a fourteen year old girl who falls in love with a prison convict, but it's the relationship with this convict that leads her to make choices that ultimately lead to a far different path than the one she expected to take at the start of the novel. I found this novel much more enjoyable than Mitchard's first novel. I felt the two main characters were far more compelling and better developed, especially Arley. Stuart shows the same lack of depth as the husband, Patrick, did in Mitchard's first novel, but I think this is hard to avoid when you're telling a story in first person, from the perspective of only two characters. Once again, Mitchard displays a wonderful knack for language, without being as overbearing as she was in DEEP. She appears to be far more comfortable with her voice now, and the story flows very naturally. Furthermore, I was convinced by her descriptions of Texas, impressed by her knowledge of flora and fauna. Yes, there is that bit of confusion (as mentioned in a review that follows) when Annie implies she spent a night at Charley's place with Arley and the baby, then apparently goes back to the hospital to talk to Arley just a couple pages later. This is simply more proof that publishing houses lack good editors these days. Mitchard suffered the same problem in her first novel, when she set us up with fall scenery just about the time Ben shows up again, though she designates the month as June. Writers really need to be sure they've been consistent when making changes to the final draft, yet by the final draft, most writers are numb to their own words. Too bad for Mitchard this has happened twice. (By the way, I'm including my e-mail address here. Write me if you're looking for an editor who reads every word and feels passionate about ! good storytelling.) I do have two complaints about this novel. One is that Mitchard tends to let conversations drag on far too long at times. The chapter where Stuart and Annie decide they should probably get married was utterly boring, like watching Michael Jordan dribble for twenty minutes instead of run and shoot. Also, we expect the ending we get to the novel, but gee it might have been so much nicer if it had been a little bit more exciting. And I think if Hollywood buys this one, they will definitely build up that final scene with Dillon a bit more. The poetry? While some have complained it's a waste of space, I found it sometimes surprised me. I wouldn't give Dillon or Arley any poet laureate awards, but I think it added a nice texture to the book. All in all, I can't believe this book isn't getting more attention. It's a very nice, original story (far, far superior to Judy Blume's Summer Sisters). I'm so glad Mitchard left Wisconsin long enough to make Texas a more interesting place for us.
Rating: 
Summary: Columnist gets lost between Manhattan and the Alamo
Review: I've been reading this interesting journalist for years in the Milwaukee press. Witty, trenchant, a woman who's been around the block a few times, who knows her emotional neighborhood, knows the human heart, knows how to put this into a 600 word column. Her character is a Jewish woman, a lawyer from Manhattan, transplanted to south-central Texas. Two unique voices, spoken through a writer from the Chicago suburbs. Nobody from New York who hangs out with a lawyer who takes capital punishment cases in Texas would live in San Antonio. San Antonio courts and lawyers are largely retired military, handling torts and bar stabbing cases, and a lot of child-support cases in this city of five Army bases. Austin (a city like Madison, where Mitchard lives and works)might have been the a believable setting --full of state politics and University life. And the structure of this second novel has each character, alternating narrative chapters, each speaking with Mitchard's voice, intonation, perspective and wit, grafted on a character who's as wooden as a manikin. This wonderful writer needs to come back home.
Rating: 
Summary: A good summer read
Review: I thought this book was good but not great. My real reason for writing is to ask other readers if they too were confused by the passage where Annie goes back to the hospital to tell Arley about her sister's disappearance. In the opening passage, it sounds as if Annie and Charlie have spent the night at Charlie's home with Arley and the baby there as well. There is mention of the baby crying the in the night. The next morning, however, Annie goes to the hospital to tell Arley about the offer of the cabin in the woods. How can these two passages be reconciled? I'd love to know what I am missing here.
Rating:
Summary: You Should Definetly Put This One on your To Read List
Review: This book was really hard to put down. It keeps you interested all the way until the end. It's as if you can feel exactly what all the main characters are feeling themselves. It's amazing how someone like Arley,a sweet, naive girl from an unloving home, can be so intelligent & loving. I think my heart would go out to Arley just as Annie's has.
Rating:
Summary: Predictable, this is the stuff of soap operas!
Review: Mitchard's new book, The Most Wanted, was a serious disappointment to me. I loved The Deep End of the Ocean and found it almost painful to read, its character depth and poignancy, was wonderful. The Most Wanted takes a facile look at relationships and the characterization lacks depth. Annie Singer is the most interesting of the bunch, but Arley's point of view becomes tiring reading. I was disappointed!
Rating:
Summary: Best of Genre
Review: This book is a rarity as far as I'm concerned... an easy read that doesn't insult your intelligence. Yes, it was sentimental and centered entirely on the relationships between the characters, but there isn't anything wrong with that! It's the best book I've read from this genre. The trend of so many recent novels is to present you with main characters who are so flawed as to make them one-dimensional. Lately I've read too many books that I've been too irritated to finish because I couldn't find one character in the entire story I could relate to or root for. "The Most Wanted" gives you a whole slew of characters to choose from who are flawed enough to be real without compromising their integrity. The reader will realize the impending marriage is doomed from the first page but this book is not about the relationship between Arly and Dillon. The point is to show how lives are changed at pivotal moments... how what other people may perceive as the biggest mistake of your life can actually be the force which irrevocably sets you on a path you would have never chosen for yourself... a path that enriches your life in ways you could have never imagined.
Rating:
Summary: difficult to get involved with...didn't grab my attention
Review: I enjoyed Mitchards other book, Deep End of the Ocean, but found that also slow in getting my attention. I am half-way through this book and just about to throw in the towel on it. I find I don't particularly care about either character. I am thinking of just putting it away for awhile.
Rating:
Summary: Too sentimental, although it is suspensful in the end
Review: I didn't care a whole lot for this book. Mitchard is good at some things, like getting inside the mind of her middle-aged lawyer heroine, but there are too many cliches in the book, and it is too sentimental. Since some of the story is told through the eyes of a 14-year-old girl, the narrative is marred by too much melodrama and mushiness.
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