Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

No Time to Wave Goodbye (Cappadora Family #2)

3.21 of 5 stars 3.21 · rating details · 1,143 ratings · 263 reviews

Twenty-two years have passed since Beth Cappadora’s three-year-old son, Ben, was abducted. By some miracle he returned nine years later, and the family began to pick up the pieces of their lives.
Now, in this sequel to Mitchard’s beloved bestseller The Deep End of the Ocean, the Cappadora children are grown: Ben is married and has a baby girl, Kerry is studying to be an ope...more

Paperback, 256 pages

Published May 4th 2010 by Random House Trade Paperbacks (first published January 1st 2009)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Add this book to your favorite list »

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 2,023)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Jun 03, 2010 Peggy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Just begun. Curious after meeting her. Loved Deep End of the Ocean.

Okay this is getting slower than molasses in January! I may have to switch books and leave this one behind if it doesn't pick up.

Okay it only took me 1/2 way thru this book to find it interesting. And then I could not put it down! OMG Had to go work today or I would have finished.

Is it just me or are more books slow or not that great lately??

like 1 like · see review

Nov 20, 2011 Sidna Bookout rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When Jacquelyn Mitchard's first novel, "Deep End of the Ocean" was selected by Oprah Winfrey as her first book club selection, the book immediately became a best seller. I thought it was an interesting book, but not great.

At the time, I lived in Milwaukee and was a fan of Mitchard's column in the Journal Sentinel so I was pleased at her success. She and I had some similar life experiences and I had an opportunity to correspond with her via email and to meet her. She was warm and gracious. I wish...more When Jacquelyn Mitchard's first novel, "Deep End of the Ocean" was selected by Oprah Winfrey as her first book club selection, the book immediately became a best seller. I thought it was an interesting book, but not great.

At the time, I lived in Milwaukee and was a fan of Mitchard's column in the Journal Sentinel so I was pleased at her success. She and I had some similar life experiences and I had an opportunity to correspond with her via email and to meet her. She was warm and gracious. I wish I liked her novels better. I have been disappointed in her novels since the first one.

I had never heard of this book until I spotted it on sale at a book store that is going out of business. The book reintroduces the Cappadora family 22 years after their 3-year-old son Ben was abducted. He was missing for 9 years, then was returned home. The woman who had kidnapped him had died in the interim and he was raised by her husband, who appeared to be a wonderful man. Ben, who had been renamed Sam, preferred the father he knew to the birth family he didn't know, and went back and forth between the two families during his teen years. He is now married and has a baby daughter.

"Deep End" explored what the abduction and return of a child does to the parents and the siblings, an older brother, Vincent, and baby sister, Kerry. In her Acknowledgments, Mitchard thanks her readers who asked her "what became of the lost boy, Vincent, until finally I knew."

In this book, Vincent has written and produced a film called "No Time to Wave Goodbye," in which he explores what happens in five families who have had children abducted. His film is nominated for an Academy Award as the Best Documentary. His family is thrilled when the film wins the Oscar, only to be devastated when Ben's six-month-old daughter is abducted. The rest of the book is about trying to find the granddaughter and what happens to some of the other families.

The kidnapping of the baby in this book did not ring true to me. I would have enjoyed reading about Vincent's success and how the members of the family have coped, instead of reading about how the family is devasted by another child abduction. (less)

like 1 like · see review

Jul 04, 2010 Nancy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Maybe there's something up with Jacquelyn Mitchard lately--but her books, once reliable good-reads, feel like she's churning them out.

No Time to Wave Goodbye is a sequel to Deep End of the Ocean, but they feel like two separate authors wrote them--as if someone posing as Mitchard were trying to recapture that detailed pain of trying to live an ordinary life after the worse possible thing (a missing child) occurs. She doesn't quite achieve that-- the residual emotional fragility of the family fee...more

like 1 like · see review

Jun 24, 2010 Marie desJardins rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I thought I would like this book -- I *wanted* to like this book -- about a family whose son is abducted, then found again 9 years later, and how that experience affects them. But I just found myself completely disengaged from the characters. The story just doesn't ring true in so many ways. The dialogue is stilted and doesn't sound like real people. The characters aren't actually drawn with any depth, and their actions don't make that much sense half the time.

Little things started bothering m...more I thought I would like this book -- I *wanted* to like this book -- about a family whose son is abducted, then found again 9 years later, and how that experience affects them. But I just found myself completely disengaged from the characters. The story just doesn't ring true in so many ways. The dialogue is stilted and doesn't sound like real people. The characters aren't actually drawn with any depth, and their actions don't make that much sense half the time.

Little things started bothering me early on -- one of the first extended sequences in the book is the premiere of a documentary (about missing children) by the older brother (the one who wasn't abducted). Everybody in the audience knows what the movie is about -- except his mother. Somehow he's kept her from finding out anything about the movie during a year or more of filming and production, with the whole rest of the family involved. And why would he do this? Well, it's never exactly clear; somehow he thinks she will be upset that he's made this movie, yet he made it to try to connect with her. Or something. Throughout the premiere, which lasts for an incredibly long time in "book time," the people in the theater are watching each other unbelievably closely. That doesn't make sense, either -- who can see every person in a darkened movie theater, and read their subtle reactions? And why would they be doing that instead of watching the movie?

Mitchard also tends to be overly verbose in places where it doesn't really create any sense of place or character, just gets in the way of what she's trying to say. At times I feel like she must have been writing with a thesaurus sitting next to her. Like this sentence: "Vincent's dexterous hands had lifted this subject out of bathos into impassioned gravity." Sorry, I just can't buy it.

I just didn't buy into the people and their story, and by a quarter of the way into the book, I was really just skimming to see if any character development was going to happen. By halfway through, I was in serious rapid-skimming mode -- I sort of wanted to know how it all turned out, but not enough to bother with the details. I thought I remembered reading and liking "The Deep End of the Ocean," but maybe I just remembered hearing about it. Anyway, I doubt I'll go read it after this one. Not a big fan.(less)

like · see review

Jun 08, 2010 Donna Johnson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

like · see review

Feb 15, 2010 Meg rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature-fiction-800s, 2010-books-read-to-present

If you have not read Deep End of the Ocean, you'll need to do so before reading No Time to Wave Goodbye, as it is a sequel in the strictest sense. Reading them out of order will ruin the suspense of Deep End of the Ocean.

In No Time to Wave Goodbye, we follow the Cappadora family (now with grown children) as they fight to solve another crime against their already vulnerable family. For anyone who wonders what ever happened to Vincent (the older brother who was holding Ben's hand when Ben was tak...more

like · see review

Nov 13, 2009 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I KNOW I read the first one about the disappearance of the younger son...at the woman's high school reunion, and the older boy was supposed to be holding the kid's hand and the mom looked away just for a bit, and ....

it was very creepy how the boy was then raised by a woman and her husband (who the boy grew up to know as his Dad), then the people find the kid living near them some years later, and they fight to get him back, and then...well, you get the idea...so here we are years later, and the...more

like · see review

Oct 21, 2009 Beth rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 p...more

like · see review

Oct 01, 2009 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

No Time to Wave Goodbye, by Jacquelyn Mitchard, is a sequel to her 1996 novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, which was later made into a movie.

In The Deep End of the Ocean, three year old Ben Cappadora was kidnapped, and surprisingly, he returns home nine years later.

In Mitchard's latest novel, the Cappadora children are grown. Vincent, an older brother of Ben, films a documentary about five families whose children were abducted and are still missing. Sister Kerry helps with the film.

At the screeni...more

like 1 like · see review

Aug 31, 2009 Linda King rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Cappadora family is welcome in my home any time. I read “Deep End of the Ocean” many years ago, saw the movie once on the big screen, then on video, my mother listened to the audio book and I grabbed it and listened, then read the book again - all this over a period of several years. I was delighted when I heard that there would be more . . . . . that once again we would have the opportunity to renew our relationship with this family. Jacquelyn Mitchard has an insight into family dynamics th...more

like 1 like · see review

Jul 21, 2009 Dulcey Lima rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: People who enjoy books about relationships and a great story.

Recommended to Dulcey by: I read everything for adults by Jacqueline Mitchard.

I just received an advance copy of Jacqueline Mitchard’s newest book No Time to Wave Goodbye and I devoured it. It is the riveting sequel to Deep End of the Ocean, Mitchard’s first novel which was chosen as Oprah’s first Book Club entry in September 1996. As the new novel opens, Beth Cappadora is about to watch the premier of her oldest son Vincent’s documentary film whose gut-wrenching theme of family life after a child is abducted and lost comes as a complete shock to the Cappadora parents. Mi...more I just received an advance copy of Jacqueline Mitchard’s newest book No Time to Wave Goodbye and I devoured it. It is the riveting sequel to Deep End of the Ocean, Mitchard’s first novel which was chosen as Oprah’s first Book Club entry in September 1996. As the new novel opens, Beth Cappadora is about to watch the premier of her oldest son Vincent’s documentary film whose gut-wrenching theme of family life after a child is abducted and lost comes as a complete shock to the Cappadora parents. Mitchard cuts through each tortured documentary family member’s personality and Beth Cappadora’s own tattered soul as she is forced to watch the terror of the days after her son Ben was kidnapped. It has been a decade since I read the Deep End, but the characters rematerialized in No Time to Wave Goodbye with consistency and every flaw intact. Although years have passed since the Cappadora family reunited with their middle son Ben, the wounds of the trauma are still palpable. Parents and children have grown, healed a bit, modified, adjusted, and now share new places in each other’s lives. A certain settling in process has transpired over the years with a rather uneasy peace.

The family revels in the joy and success of Vincent’s documentary but ultimately the exposure creates new horrors that force the Cappadora’s to painfully trudge down another dark but familiar alley. This time the roles are switched, and the painstaking search for one of their own brings new awareness and surprising insights. We expect sharp storytelling and wonderful prose from Ms. Mitchard and I’m thankful that she brought this First Family of Cappadoras back for another round of enlightenment. It may be hard to picture how a book with this rare, dark theme could have a universal quality to it! No Time to Wave Goodbye successfully exposes the coping strategies, shells and personas we use to express our humanness, and left me feeling like adaptation and the love that requires it, are perhaps the most important human traits of all.
(less)

like · see review

Sep 14, 2009 Rocky rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sequels sometimes work. And Jacquelyn Mitchard’s No Time To Wave Goodbye without question is one of those sometimes. And what a sequel! We return to the world of the Cappadoras more than twenty years after Ben’s kidnapping in The Deep End of the Ocean, the first Oprah bookclub selection. Ben is now married with a daughter. Kerry is a voice student. Vincent is a filmmaker who has made a well-regarded documentary on childhood abduction that garners an Oscar nomination.

Then something happens and th...more

like · see review

Jul 13, 2011 Daphne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Duh! I didn't realise until I read the reviews for this to remind me what it was about that I found out it was a sequel to The deep end of the ocean which I loved! How could I not see that? I try to stay away from blurbs on jacket covers and reviews until I have read a book, but this time I obviously outdid myself. The new book was great, and if I read it as a continuance of the first one, I might have thought it was even better. When the powerful media headlights go off the story of the day (th...more

like · see review

Oct 26, 2009 Ramona rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Mitchard has again written an excellent novel focusing on what became of brothers Vincent & Ben from her book, The Deep End of the Ocean. Another kidnapping takes place after Vincent writes & produces a documentary that interviews & tells the story of families whose children have disappeared. The story brought me to the edge of my seat as the search for this baby takes them into the snow covered hills in CA. No Time to Wave Goodbye made me aware of the importance of making the genera...more

like · see review

Feb 15, 2010 Amy rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

like 1 like · see review

Dec 21, 2009 Laren rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

like 1 like · see review

Oct 01, 2009 Laurel-Rain rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Twenty years after the events of "The Deep End of the Ocean (Oprah's Book Club)," the Cappadora family still struggles with issues that sprang from that horrendous period in all their lives. And despite the reunion that came to them, their son Ben still calls himself "Sam," the name given to him by his "kidnapper," and still considers George, his "father" during that period, his "dad." He calls his birth parents "Beth" and "Pat."

Despite these things that "stick in their craw," Beth and Pat Cappa...more

like 2 likes · see review

Apr 01, 2010 Robin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: realistic-fiction

I had several different reactions to this book. First of all, I did not like the first half of this book, but loved the middle and the ending was a five star one. That is why I gave it four stars. If you want to read this book, I would suggest first that you read "Deep End of the Ocean".
This is a sequel to "The Deep End ...", which I had read years ago. That was about a child abduction that happened years ago. The boy, Ben, was returned after nine years, but he never fit into the family because...more

like · see review

Jul 31, 2010 Patty rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

I wanted so much more from this book. The Deep End of the Ocean is one of my all-time favorite books. Unfortunately, I feel like Mitchard's writing is getting worse instead of better. I really didn't like Still Summer, and this book has the same problem; Mitchard thinks we want action and suspense, and I don't. I just want character development and, in this case, to catch up on much-loved characters from another book. This doesn't happen AT ALL. All I got was that Pat and Beth are stinking rich...more

like 1 like · see review

Sep 03, 2012 Marca rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book picks up with the Cappadora family twenty-two years after Ben/Sam was abducted when he was three (but returned nine years later). Ben/Sam is now married with his own child and works in the family restaurant. His older brother Vincent, who drifted for a while, is now a filmmaker and made a film entitled “No Time to Wave Goodbye.” The film explores the lives and emotions of families who have lost children to stranger abduction and did not yet know the fate of their children. The film goe...more

like · see review

Oct 26, 2009 Nancy (Hrdcovers) rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

TIME TO WAVE GOODBYE TO THE CAPPADORO'S

Back in the late 90's, I was just getting back into reading when, lo and behold, Oprah started her book club. For as much as the reader elite got pleasure in putting down an Oprah pick, I, on the other hand, couldn't wait for each new one to be announced. I was right there, at the beginning with her, when she touted Deep End of the Ocean as the first book to be read by the "club". I read it and loved it and was consequently introduced to Jacqueline Mitchard...more TIME TO WAVE GOODBYE TO THE CAPPADORO'S

Back in the late 90's, I was just getting back into reading when, lo and behold, Oprah started her book club. For as much as the reader elite got pleasure in putting down an Oprah pick, I, on the other hand, couldn't wait for each new one to be announced. I was right there, at the beginning with her, when she touted Deep End of the Ocean as the first book to be read by the "club". I read it and loved it and was consequently introduced to Jacqueline Mitchard as a "new to me" author. I can probably count on one hand the books that have brought me to tears and Deep End was one of them.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I realized that her newest book was a sequel to that Oprah pick. I don't think there's anyone, who has read that book, who has not wondered, in their literary mind of course, whatever happened to the Cappadora family. Now was my chance to see what occurred in the years following their discovery that their kidnapped son Ben was still alive and well....and living just a few blocks from them. If you haven't read Deep End of the Ocean, I highly recommend reading it before beginning to delve into No Time To Say Goodbye.....if you must!!!

In a way, I almost wish I hadn't read Deep End because then I wouldn't have wasted my time reading this sequel. So I guess that pretty much spells out what I thought of this book. I always seem to be a sucker for all these five star Amazon reviews and I don't know when I'm going to learn my lesson and check to see just how many of them are written by first time reviewers....reviewers who have only written one review on this site. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that these are friends of the author obviously trying to boost the rating of the book.

So where did this book fall short for me? I think I'd have to start with the writing which is so disjointed that half the time I had to reread sentences and paragraphs just to find out where the characters were and how they got there. There is so much misplaced punctuation that it actually made it hard to read at times. The writing is so deplorable that I even found it hard to believe that the same author wrote both books. But I figured I'd overlook that and just try to enjoy the book. But my question is....how can you enjoy a book when you're basically disliking every character? Did I dislike them this much the first time around? I don't think so but I definitely didn't like anything about them in this go-round.

So many other reviewers have already given synopses of this story about the older brother Vincent trying to make something of his life by getting into the movie business. He's certainly talented but, unfortunately, his recent documentary will bring back some bad memories of a time in the Cappadora's lives where everyone was walking around in a daze. This was because their youngest son Ben had been kidnapped, while Vincent was supposed to be keeping an eye on him. So his has been a life filled with guilt. The only one who seems not to have minded those years is Ben himself, who still considers his kidnapper's husband to be his real father. I just found this part of the book so appalling, as Ben calls his real parents by their first names, Beth and Pat, while he calls this other man Dad. And, as if that isn't bad enough, he's so nasty to them and flaunts this relationship in their faces all the time.

As the story progresses, the family will once again face a potential tragedy that will bring out the worst in all of them. The only redeeming character in this entire book is the son Vincent, who I also felt an attachment to in the first book.

Prior to reading this, I had been on such a great run with mostly five star reads. This one ruined my streak. If you've already read Deep End of the Ocean, stop there and don't go any further. Just cherish those memories of a really good book and don't have them marred by a really not so good book. (less)

like 3 likes · see review

Jan 22, 2013 Stephanie Reiner rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Just as Vincent accepts his award, a hysterical phone call comes in: Ben's baby daughter has been kidnapped. Yes, she actually makes another kidnapping--the kidnapping of the kidnapped kid's kid--the central plot. Of course, the police are too useless to figure out the culprit, so Vincent, motivated by guilt because he's convinced that his movie provoked someone to take revenge on his family, has to do it. We have to go through all the tear-jerking scenes we saw in the first novel. And then he h...more

like · see review

Feb 02, 2010 Candice rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this because I liked The Deep End of the Ocean. This had many of the same characters and takes place years later. Some of the events just didn't ring true to me. However: two things I did like. This quote: "Beth...comforted herself by thinking, This is the best night of someone's life. Tonight, someone learned the lump was only a lump; someone said yes; the stick had a plus sign; the call finally came; the smoke from under the hood was only steam; the kids won the game that would send the...more

like · see review

Aug 25, 2010 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

like · see review

Sep 02, 2009 Kimberly Onufrock-bracco added it · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone

Recommended to Kimberly by: a wonderful friend

It was wonderful to be with the Cappadora family again. Since I am married to an Italian I get that familiarity of family and love feeling when reading about them. I have often wondered how Vincent and Ben/Sam, Beth and Pat faired all these years. I was very moved how you were able to intertiwne the issue of child abduction through Vincent's movie and the peril of the family once again. I want to keep this brief as I know you get lots of emails I would say my favorite scenes were between Sam and...more

like 1 like · see review

Oct 11, 2009 Jennifer rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read Deep End of the Ocean years ago and really enjoyed it. This book is a follow-up to that novel, allowing the reader to see what happened to the family that was ripped apart by child abduction twenty years earlier.

I was disappointed by this novel in many ways. I thought that understanding the characters and their motivations required remembering a lot of detail from the previous book (and I did not). I also thought that the plot was silly --- the child who was abducted in the first book ha...more

like · see review

Sep 05, 2009 Jessi Pacetti rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Oh the Cappadoras, those amazing Cappadoras are back! This wonderfully written novel takes us back to the sad heartwrenching story of the family we fell in love with from The Deep End of the Ocean. Jackie makes the “s word” (sequel) not so dirty. I oftentimes wondered what happened to the tragic Beth Cappadora and her family. Jackie’s wonderful writing style and flow brought it all back to me and gave me so much more insight on the survival of a family. I felt like I was right there sitting next...more

like · see review

Sep 29, 2009 Becky rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The book starts really well. Mitchard spends little time rehashing old history from The Deep End of the Ocean or time in-between novels.

As the plot unfolded, I found it to be predictable, but that didn't bother me. Mitchard's writing style is based upon emotion and dissecting interpersonal relationships. The crux of the story is how each of the Cappadora family members have dealt with Ben/Sam's kidnapping (15 years in the future.)

As the book progressed, I thought it was a bit maudlin. Then, I f...more

like · see review

Jan 08, 2012 Melissa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Read The Deep End of the Ocean many years ago - while the resolution was better than the alternative, it was all-around a sad book, demonstrating how family members get lost as a result of grief. This sequel, No Time to Wave Goodbye, was written fourteen years after the initial book. I picked it up reticently, not sure that I wanted to ride the emotional roller coaster with this family, specifically the mother, again, but it was very much an emotional resolution to the first book, which was appr...more

like · see review

Oct 21, 2009 mary rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library, unabridged-audio

Years ago, after reading The Deep End of the Ocean, I found The Most Wanted which I thought as good as or better than Deep End. Then there was A Theory of Relativity which was almost as good as the first two.

Unfortunately, all Mitchard's subsequent titles seemed to slide downhill, picking up speed as they progressed. I was heartened by Cage of Stars, but depressed again with her next three titles.

Now it seems Mitchard has gone back to the well, and in No Time to Wave Goodbye she revisits the Cap...more

like 1 like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 67 68 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (10)

More editions...

Genres

Womens Fiction > Chick Lit

5 users

Mystery

4 users

Contemporary

2 users

Realistic Fiction

2 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Jacquelyn Mitchard

Jacquelyn Mitchard’s first novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, was named by USA Today as one of the ten most influential books of the past 25 years – second only to the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling (but second by a long shot, it must be said.)

The Deep End of the Ocean was chosen as the first novel in the book club made famous by the TV host Oprah Winfrey, and transformed into a feature film p...more

More about Jacquelyn Mitchard...

Books by Jacquelyn Mitchard

The Deep End of the Ocean (Cappadora Family, #1)

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About No Time to Wave G...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

title link	preview: No Time to Wave Goodbye
avg rating	preview: No Time to Wave Goodbye Goodreads rating: 3.21 (1143 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6905549-no-time-to-wave-goodbye?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320412913l/6905549.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6905549-no-time-to-wave-goodbye?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]No Time to Wave Goodbye by Jacquelyn Mitchard[/url]

No Time to Wave Goodbye (Cappadora Family #2)

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website