Wes’ book review: Deep End of the Ocean. 2.5 stars. Meh, what a mixed bag. This book was a great idea that could have been executed much better by another writer with more experience in my opinion. (This was the author’s debut novel and I think it showed.) While it was a quick page turner, one is left feeling a little cheated by what could have been an absolutely stunning novel in the hands of someone with more control over their craft.

PROS:
1. Great idea and initial plot development. (A 3 year old child is kidnapped at a college reunion. This is TRULY a nightmare scenario and it is the lynchpin at the core of the novel.)
2. Nice writing style when describing emotions and broad relationship concepts
3. Realistic portrayal of stages of family turmoil and resolve over time
4. Creates a great sense of deeply felt empathy for certain family members

CONS:
The main character is so devastated by grief that she comes off as unlikeable, narcissistic and cold.
Cheesy, melodramatic dialogue during certain passages that make those sections feel like a corny made for tv movie.
3. A few side stories that added nothing and actively took away (A shallow affair for instance.)
4. There were a few coincidences and revelations that were so far fetched, they simply took you right out of the story completely. When complicated scenarios are handled in this manner, it reveals an inability to create a more complete and well formed solution.

I would be ambivalent about recommending this to others, but I don’t want to say “steer clear” either as there were some genuine flashes of really excellent writing and storytelling in there. If you pick it up, just know what you are getting into before you do.

The story of a family in the wake of a tragedy. When Ben, a three year old boy, disappears in a crowded hotel lobby, his family begins to slowly come apart. Nine years later, the boy is miraculously found and restored to the family, safe and unhurt. Unfortunately, it is not the happy homecoming everyone wanted. Ben does not remember his birth family. To him, the Cappadoras are rank strangers he is forced to live with while the father who raised him lives right down the street. The pain of all concerned is palpable as the family struggles to come to terms with guilt, anger, loss, and who "family" actually is.

This story puts me in mind of King Solomon and the two women fighting over the baby. Will the "real"parents please stand up. What and who is "family?" The only parallel I can think of in real life are the cases where a child is given up for adoption and years later the birth parents decide they want the child back. I can't imagine a more selfish decision than to rip a child away from the only family they have ever known and force it to live with complete strangers.

The author did a pretty fair job of getting into the heads of the Cappadora's as they slowly unravel as a family.

The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacqueline Mitchard is a 1996 Penguin publication.

Absorbing family drama…

Three-year-old Ben goes missing when his mother travels to Chicago for a class reunion. The fallout is placed under an intense microscope as a family is torn apart by the loss of their child…

It’s funny what minutiae is stored in my brain sometimes. Years ago, I was looking through the clearance table at my local paperback swap store, when I happened across this book. It triggered a memory in my mind of a colleague telling me they had stayed up late one night watching a movie called ‘The Deep End of the Ocean’ which starred Michelle Pfeiffer. They described it as ‘absorbing’.

So, I decided I would see what the book was like, especially after reading the synopsis.

Unfortunately, the book has been sitting on my shelf all these years, and every time I considered reading it, I changed my mind. Now, as many of you have heard me explain, recently, I’m culling through my massive TBR pile and making some tough choices.

Any book that has been on the list longer than five years is automatically on the chopping block- so I had to decide. Read it right now… or box it up and donate it to the library…

So here we are…

The story starts off like any other book centered around a missing child. Beth is attending her class reunion and decided to take her children along. Her three-year-old son vanishes in a crowded hotel lobby, never to be seen or heard from again.

While normally this trope crops up in crime fiction this book does not even remotely fall into that category, in my opinion.

This is a heavy drama that explores the aftermath of losing a child and the effect it has on a family, a marriage, and the remaining children, examining the coping mechanisms each resort to in order to get by.

The damage is horrifying and profound. It’s easy to judge, to take sides, the feel sympathy and empathy, anger, and frustration- sometimes all at once. Each character is flawed, or damaged and they go through years of emotional trauma before a miraculous turn of events opens an entirely new avenue of bittersweet hope and pain.

The novel was published in the mid/late nineties, and it shows in many ways. Some outdated attitudes and stereotypes must be tolerated- some of which are offensive at times. But the main thing to keep in mind is that this is not a missing persons investigation- it is a family drama-and as a result, the pacing at times moved at a snail’s pace. I read two or three chapters a night, then changed over to another book never struggling to put the book down, until somewhere around the half-way mark when I found myself becoming much more invested- until finally, one night I picked it up and literally could not tear my eyes off the pages.

It took a while to get there, but once all the chips were on the table it was riveting.

Now, this scenario has been explored, even before this book was written, and countless times since, but the internal turmoil the story explored is especially profound and emotional, but also frightening, and very, very sad. The characters were not always likeable- in fact, often I wanted to scream at all of them!! Still, the situation demands that judgment be withheld and so I watched from a distance as events unfolded and felt all the emotions the characters did, but from a more analytical perch. It was hard, depressing, in many ways, but also very thought provoking.

The saga does continue with a follow-up book, and I was pleased to discover the author delves deeper into this family drama, though I do hope it is not quite as bleak as this wrenching story.

Overall, I am glad I didn’t box this book up just yet. It will still find its way to a new home, where I hope another reader will someday find themselves entrenched in this realistic, heart-rending story, and that it will stay with them, as it will certainly stay with me.

4 stars

I really enjoyed this book. What I loved best was the honesty - it wasn't too "Cinderella" story - it was gritty and raw at times and pain, in many forms is written very well. A great read.

1.5 stars
I usually compare the book to its film, and almost always the book wins. Not this time. NOPE.
I've watched the film tons of times, and I loved it, and I cry every single time. With the book, only a couple of tears. And I adore the characters.
The characters here were unlikable, specially Beth Cappadora, the mother. I didn't like her from the start. As for the rest, I only liked Vincent/Reese a little. I get that all of them were really affected and damaged when tragedy striked, but most were just annoying.
And the ending was too much for me.
SPOILERS HERE: Baby boy just knocking on the door like that? Beth forgiving the crazy lady who took her baby? Giving him up when you finally get him back? I felt really sorry for his "other dad", I admit I cried with this, but I guess they could've worked something out.
So excuse me, but I'll go back to watching the film, curled up in my bed.

Got distracted from the story several times because the book was long winded and had all these side stories. Mainly that is because of the writing style. So I am glad this book is done!

The Deep End of the Ocean (Cappadora Family #1), Jacquelyn Mitchard
Spoiler Alert
The Deep End of the Ocean is a best-selling novel by Jacquelyn Mitchard, released in 1996. Wisconsin photographer and housewife Beth Cappadora leaves her youngest son, Ben, alone with his older brother for a brief moment in a crowded Chicago hotel lobby, while attending her high school reunion. The older son lets go of Ben's hand and Ben vanishes without a trace. Beth goes into an extended mental breakdown and it is left to her husband and owner of a restaurant, Pat, to force his wife to robotically care for their remaining two children, 7-year-old Vincent and infant daughter Kerry.

Nine years later a young boy named Sam asks Beth if she needs the lawn mowed. Beth suspects that this boy who lives with his "father" two blocks away is in fact her lost son, and while Sam mows the lawn, she takes photographs of him to show to her husband and teenage son, who then says that he suspected the boy's true identity all along. The parents contact Detective Candy Bliss who pops in to offer wise, albeit often cryptic and conflicting, advice to Beth. It is learned that at the reunion in Chicago, the celebrity alumna Cecil Lockhart kidnapped Ben, renamed him Sam, and raised him as her own child until she was committed to a mental hospital, leaving Sam to be raised in a house only two blocks from the Cappadoras, by his adoptive father, the sensitive and intellectual George Karras. ...

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز دوازدهم ماه نوامبر سال 2009 میلادی
عنوان: ان‍ت‍ه‍ای‌ ع‍م‍ی‍ق‌ اق‍ی‍ان‍وس‌؛ نویسنده: ژاک‍ل‍ی‍ن‌ م‍ی‍چ‍ارد‏‫؛ مت‍رج‍م: س‍رور ق‍اس‍م‍ی‌؛ ‏‫ش‍ی‍راز‬‏‫: ن‍وی‍د ش‍ی‍راز‬‏‫، 1386؛ 567 ص؛ شابک: 9789643583125؛‬‬ موضو: داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20 م

کتاب «انتهای عمیق اقیانوس» داستان رابطه و سرگذشت زن و شوهری به نام «بث» و «پت» است؛ داستان مسائل و رخدادهایی است که با از بین رفتن پسرشان «بن» برای آن‌ها به وجود می‌آید. سرآغاز داستان مربوط به ماه نوامبر سال 1995 میلادی است؛ آن صبح گرم ماه اوت که «بث» پاکت محتوی عکس‌ها را درکشو قرار داد، در بعد از ظهر سرد پاییزی که آن‌ها را بیرون آورد، و عکس‌ها را یکی‌ یکی روی میز چید، و اکنون که ده سال بین آن صبح گرم و این بعد از ظهر سرد، می‌گذرد. نقطه‌ ی آغاز داستان شرح ماجرای همین عکس‌هاست. «بث» و «بت» تمام اسباب‌بازی‌ها و اشیای مربوط به «بن» را طی این سال‌ها، البته بجز عکس‌ها را، از خود دور کرده بودند. عکس‌ها برای «بث»، که خود عکاس بود، طلسم شده بودند. آن‌ها آخرین اثر از «بن» بودند؛ شبی شاد و راحت. فراز و نشیب‌های ذهنی «بث» و «پت»، سرگذشت زندگی آن دو و زندگی مجزای هریک از آن‌ها در ادامه‌ ی داستان بیان می‌شود. ا. شربیانی

I know I loved this book cause it is on my amazon list: Ten great Books I've read in 2004. Would like to read again.

THE DEEP END of the OCEAN by Jacquelyn Mitchard

I decided to read this book because it was recommended by my mum as i didn't know what to read for my book reports.
The category i chose for this book is 'A book with a female main character'. This was interesting because the female main character was the mother of Ben the boy who went missing in this book and it showed us the pain she had for losing her son and how her family got torn apart.
My favourite quote from the book is "Where's Ben" because it was the quote that really started off the book for me and it made you want to read on to find out where Ben is and what has happened to him.
Something new i learned from this book is to always be aware of your family and don't ignore them because one day it could be the last time you ever see them again.
A character i found interesting in this book was Beth Cappadora who is also the female main character in this book.I found her interesting because since Ben was lost ( kidnapped ) Beth became a totally different person. She hardly did anything at all she just sat on the couch or sat in her room without saying a word and she completely ignored her other two kids. I find this interesting because you would think now that she has lost one kid she would hold her other two kids tightly and always make sure they are okay but she didn't.

This is quite possibly one of the worst books I have ever read. It was artistically abysmal and I would not have finished it if it weren't for the library book club I read it for. The characters (particularly the parents) are thin and unlikeable characters. The plot left unpleasantly dangling threads in several places where the author would take us to a location or revelation and then stop talking about it - including a pointless affair that did not contribute to the overall plot in any way. It was the type of book that if I was just an emotional girl and not a thinking person I might have really liked and been sucked in by; but, as it stands, I found it unsatisfying and contrived. Mitchard invites comparisons to Picoult, who is by far the superior author. Picoult's "My Sister's Keeper" explores similar family dynamic to this book but in a much more effective way. Avoid this book unless you just want a heaping pile of emotion with no rational thought.

This book was a bit depressing, but ultimately I found it well worth reading. The story centers on a family dealing with the abduction of their three year old son. The mother sinks into depression and fails to parent her other two children, and, overall, everyone’s life deteriorates. The topic may not be a real draw for some readers, but life really does throw people under the bus sometimes and their lives are forever impacted. This is a well-constructed story about the effects a certain tragedy had on one family. I did have a hard time relating to the main character; it really bothered me that she couldn’t see how much her older son needed her. But, to me, that’s very good writing; it forced me to reflect on the inner-workings of a character very different from myself. The second part of the book and ending were truly excellent, and a testament to parental love. The ending is full of hope, a definite payoff for the reader.

I saw the movie, starring Michelle Pfeiffer, years ago and always had in the back of my mind that I'd like to read the book. I'm glad I did. Jacquelyn Mitchard did a masterful job writing this book. The characters are rich, complex and fully developed. The plot has plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing. And not everything gets explained or tied up in a neat bow - much like life.

The first two sections of the story are told from a single point of view and the rest of the book alternates between Beth's (the mother) and her son Vincent's point of view. That in itself was clever and made the story feel more complete and complex.

The characters aren't likeable all the time - just like real people. But I found myself wanting them to find healing and to connect with one another in a healthy way. I felt sad when that didn't happen and relieved when it did.

I recommend this to anyone who wants a story that is challenging and thought provoking. I don't think of it as a beach read - kind of mindlessly entertaining. It engaged much more of my brain and emotions.