The Deep End of the Ocean

To keep myself entertained (and awake!) while nursing William at night and then rocking him back to sleep, I've been reading through a few books that have been on my shelves for months. Of course, I wasn't very intelligent when I picked this book as the first one to read; the story is about a family (primarily the mother) and how they cope with the disappearance of their three-year old son. Great choice to read while I'm nursing my newborn :)

The clear disparity between my life circumstance and the book's plot aside, I actually enjoyed this book for the most part. It felt like I was following a news story about this boy's disappearance, complete with an inside look at the family life (and maybe it's just me, but I always get sucked into those kind of news stories. Remember those three missing Ohio girls who were found alive years later? I must have read every news article about that story. And I still occasionally Google for updates now that the story is out of the limelight). I liked how the characters seemed very "human", and acted in believable and realistic ways. I also found myself able to commiserate with the mother quite a bit, not just because I am now a mother, but because in stressful situations, I also tend to be more of a "flight" than "fight". And for about ninety percent of the novel, I enjoyed reading about the trials and sorrows of this family trying to cope and adjust to their "new" life.

However, the last ten percent of this novel seemed rushed and disjointed to me (bear in mind, I was reading this in the middle of the night, so perhaps that affected my judgement a little). You know how sometimes when books are made into movies parts are cut out or shortened to keep the movie from getting too long? I felt like that's what happened at the end of this book. It was like the author was quickly approaching her deadline, or felt like the book was getting too long, so she just hurried up and ended it. While there was still resolution to the conflict and an effort to wrap up loose ends, parts of the ending were just weird at times (at least to me) because it felt like the book was jumping from point A to D without any clear explanation as to why.

I would probably recommend this book (but maybe not to people who just had their first kid!), and I think I would even reread it myself--just not in the middle of the night.