No Time to Wave Goodbye

If you read The Deep End Of The Ocean and loved it as much as I did I think you will love this book. Jacquelyn Mitchard does not disappoint. I am sometimes leery of sequels. This one was excellent! I once again fell in love with the Cappadora family. They have all aged a little but still are pretty much the same people they were in the first novel. I felt like I never lost touch with them. They have all been affected by Ben/Sam's kidnapping and eventual return. It has played a huge role in the people they have become. I think it's interesting that this book addresses not only kidnapping but what happens after. How do families go on living? This book pulls you in right from the get go. It seems the family is adjusting well to life. The kids are grown. Ben/Sam is married and a father, Kerry is on her way to becoming an opera singer, and Vincent has made a documentary which will change all their lives. Unfortunately the Cappadora's have to relive the horrible past with a new kidnapping in the family. It's hard to review it and not give the story away so I won't say too much. I read the bulk of the book in one day. I could not put it down. I just had to know what happened. There are many twists in the novel. Just when I thought I had it figured out, there was another suspect in my mind. I felt Beth's pain as she relived her own nightmare but then has to also watch her son live the same nightmare. I absolutely loved this book! This is one of the best books I have read this year.

DEEP END OF THE OCEAN has always been in my top five books. And to be honest, I was conflicted when I heard that she'd written a sequel. I've always enjoyed closing a wonderful book and then having my own fantasies about what happened to the characters later in their life, and I was nervous that Mitchard's vision wouldn't match mine (as if once I read them I owned them, but yes, this is what we do as readers!), that it somehow wouldn't feel true, or that after so much time had gone by that I wouldn't feel that magic of the first novel and its memory would be somehow tainted. As a result, it took me some time to settle down and read the book. I'm embarrassed that the thoughts ever crossed my mind. The Cappadoras are the same warm, complex individuals that they always were, and getting to know the kids--Ben/Sam, Vincent, and Kerry--as adults was tremendously satisfying. Mitchard managed to maintain the core that made them such sympathetic child characters, while rounding them out into believable and flawed adults (how did she do that?!). The elder Cappadoras are just as real as they were in DEEP END, and my frustration grew with theirs through the book--after all, we'd been through this before together, hadn't we? And, like them, I couldn't believe we were going through it again. But Mitchard's gift is that the emotions are so real, that you never question the fact that you are, indeed, going through it again, and it's just as gripping. Enough readers have summed up the plot that I won't go through every detail of it, but if you've been on the fence like I was, nervous about it living up to DEEP END, set your concerns aside and enjoy the realistic and beautifully written world that Mitchard has managed to create again. Brava!

To say that I was "looking forward" to reading No Time to Wave Goodbye would be like saying that I "look forward" to winning the lottery. In fact, that is exactly what it felt like, when I learned that Ms Mitchard would be writing this sequel to one of my favorite books of all time, the Deep End of the Ocean. Through Ms. Mitchard's specific, searing prose, I came to know Beth and Vincent and Sam in all of their wrenching hardship, pain, and eventual redemption. And yet while I would idly wonder what would happen to the Cappadora family, I never actually thought that I would one day know. And yet fate (and Ms. Mitchard) seemed to smile on all of us with the recent publication of No Time to Wave Goodbye. This next book is slimmer, some 200 pages shorter than the original. Yet it grabs you in much the same way, refusing to release you until you're heaved, gasping and drained, onto the final page. I will not detail the plot points here, but will just leave you with a very high recommendation to go out and read this book. This book is filled with wonderfully poignant moments that I found myself reading, then re-reading; I even loved the confrontations because Ms. Mitchard is at her best when knotted skeins of familial relationships are wrought and tested. The only thing I would possibly change is that I wish there was more: more interactions between Vincent and Sam, more time with Vincent's old psychiatrist Tom, more time exploring the very complicated relationship that Pat, Beth and Sam have forged. I missed the driveway basketball games of the first book, which explored so much of the brothers' relationship without even a word of dialog. I suppose the past ten years have made me greedy, but of course, as I never thought I would get a sequel in the first place, it is more than enough. Much more. Thank you, Ms. Mitchard.

All of us who wondered what happened to the Cappadoras after we closed our copies of THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN can now take a deep sigh of relief. But that cozy "so nice to meet up with you again" feeling is only temporary. It's been 22 years since Beth Cappadora suffered the shocking disappearance of her three-year-old son, Ben, and 13 years since he returned to their lives. Ben has married Eliza, the daughter of Beth's friend (and the police detective who led the search for Ben) Candy. Ben and Eliza have a beautiful baby girl named Stella. Ben works at his father Pat's restaurant, which has been very successful. Beth also has been fulfilled in her work: her photographs appear in museums, art galleries and books. Life is quite far from perfect, however. Ben has insisted, ever since he was found, that he be called "Sam," the name his kidnapper gave him. He calls Beth's husband, his birth father, "Pat." Ben states that George, the husband of his now-deceased kidnapper, is his true father and calls him "Dad." Beth and Pat truly like George, who they include in many family gatherings at Ben's insistence, but his presence in their lives rankles, always reminding them of the horror of the kidnapping and seeming somehow to unwittingly distance their son from his Cappadora family connections. Vincent, Ben's older brother, has suffered gut-wrenching guilt over Ben's kidnapping ever since it happened. After all, he was the one who was supposed to be watching Ben for the brief moment their mother was distracted in that hotel lobby. After a disaster-filled adolescence, however, Vincent appears to be finding his way as a filmmaker. As the story opens, he invites his family to the premiere of a documentary he has just finished. Beth is devastated, especially at first, to discover that the movie, called No Time to Wave Goodbye, relays the personal stories of families who have suffered child abductions. She wonders if pulling his family back into the black era following his brother's disappearance is some kind of retribution from Vincent for the years of grief-fueled poor parenting he received. Beth's pain is intensified by the fact that so many of the people closest to her participated in the movie's making --- and that none of them breathed a word about it to her. However, the film enables her to grow closer to Vincent, opening up topics they had been unable or unwilling to discuss previously. As time passes, Vincent's movie is shown in many mainstream movie theaters and begins to win awards at film festivals. When No Time to Wave Goodbye is nominated for an Academy Award, Vincent's thrilled family attends the ceremony, leaving tiny Stella with a trusted family friend. At the very moment pride and joy overwhelm the Cappadoras, an unimaginable tragedy strikes them. This nightmare opens them up to sorrow, fear, public scrutiny and danger, while adding yet more guilt to Vincent's burden and adding urgency to his quest for redemption. If readers find the ve

Jacquelyn Mitchard's latest, "No Time to Wave Good-bye," is a work nearly thirteen years in the making, much to the chagrin of her anxious fans. Needless to say, any reader will be mesmerized from the start, transfixed by a combination of well developed characters, an established story line, and truly beautiful prose. The sequel to "The Deep End of the Ocean" invites readers back into the lives of the Cappadora family, who have all grown considerably since the last time they entered our heads and our hearts, and have all dealt with the kidnapping and subsequent return of Ben in their own ways, for better or worse. These characters truly feel like old friends to anyone who has read the preceding novel, yet are strong enough to stand alone in this work of fiction. The familiarity of the characters and setting of this work may be what draw readers in, as surely they want to find out whatever happened to this endearing family. However, the true lure of this book soon proves to be the sheer suspense of the often unexpected triumphs and tragedies that stay present in ones thoughts long after they have read the last page. Though the Cappadora family exists solely in the imagination of Mitchard and her devoted fans, the characters become almost real as they give readers true cause for frustration, celebration, and mourning alike. This unique tale is unable to be categorized, and exists as a poignant and suspenseful examination of the limits of the human spirit. This novel, like it's characters, is not perfect. However, it's beautifully displayed instances of raw human emotion are true to form, and readers will surely be able to see themselves in the thoughts and actions portrayed by a family continually doing the best that they can. The optimal reading of "No Time to Wave Good-bye" will be done with a copy of "The Deep End of the Ocean" close by, as devoted readers will surely want to flip between the two. Once finished, close the book and open it again- the second reading is every bit as sweet as the first.