Rating: 
Summary: MOVING AND MEMORABLE
Review: I found these two interweaving stories of Kath and her grandmother, Georgia, to be a compelling read that has stayed in my mind months after reading it for the first time. I'm now on my second reading (something I rarely do), and find it as amazing this time around as in my first encounter. What a deep, profound novel. The reader must be patient. It's definitely a character driven book, not a plot-heavy pageturner. But once you immerse yourself in these wonderful characters from two different generations, you can't help but be drawn in deeply and feel as if you're getting to know "real people" as memorable and poignant as perhaps the secret stories woven into your own grandmother's past. To me it is truly amazing the way that Cath was raised by her grandparents after her own disturbed mother's suicide. She always thought her grandparents had boring and quite ordinary lives. But what she discovers, through reading her grandmother's diaries, is that her grandmother, Georgia's marriage was much deeper, more filled with quiet conflict and inner struggle than she'd ever imagined possible! I won't spoil the story by revealing the secrets - but the heartwarming way that her grandparents solved some deep problems in their own relationship is a model for today's couples to follow. It was so heartwarming and inspiring. Like many readers here, I've read both The World Below and While I Was Gone. They are quite different books, but I liked both. Sue Miller is now one of my very favorite authors. Bravo!!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully surprising!
Review: I was surprised at how much I loved this book. As I was reading it I was so involved with the characters I didn't even think to critique what I was reading. When I finished I realized how involved I was and how much it affected me. It caused me to reflect on my own grandmother's life and how much I wish she were still alive so I could ask her about her own life and learn the daily specifics of it. The writer does such an amazing job of showing the reader the granddaughter's point of view then telling the reader the entire story behind the diary entry. The switching back and forth from one point of view to the other just improved the story for me and made me feel excited about learning more once the full story was covered through Georgia. The writing reveals so much to the reader without being blunt and much insight seeps in without the reader's knowledge. My mother gave me this book and said she went out and found all of Sue Miller's books from the library after reading this because she loved it so much and I think I will do the same. Overall, a deeply reflective read while still entertaining.
Rating: 
Summary: Utterly disappointing
Review: It was obviously a mistake to read The World Below right after Miller's big hit While I Was Gone. I cannot percieve how the very same writer could possibly have produced these two works. There's a WORLD of difference between them. While I Was Gone was vivid, dynamic, absorbing, worth reading and remembering. The World Below is downright mediocre. Dull. Deadly slow. Not wanting to leave it unfinished out of my respect for Miller's earlier works, I forced myself almost unsuccessfully to skim-read it. I just couldn't wait to start a new book!
Rating: 
Summary: Not Great, Not Bad
Review: My first impression after reading this book was like many other reviewers: fair, not great. It seems I spent most of the book searching for the real story and I'm not convinced it ever came along. I enjoy multi-generational storytelling, but this approach seemed disjointed here and I was often confused as to which mother or daughter or timeframe she was describing. None of the characters were very engaging and mostly they all seemed distant from me as a reader. At the end, I wasn't sure what the main character Cath had resolved or what she wanted or what she was hoping to find in her journey to her grandparents' home and back. Essentially she was on some sort of journey but she never got there in any sense, and it seemed like nothing ever really happened overall. Sue Miller has some excellent books and I would definitely recommend "While I Was Gone". Though I wouldn't dissuade anyone from reading "The World Below" since it had one mildly interesting story, that of Cath's grandmother Georgia, I certainly wouldn't be able to recommend the book overall.
Rating:
Summary: Not Great, Not Bad
Review: My first impression after reading this book was like many other reviewers: fair, not great. It seems I spent most of the book searching for the real story and I'm not convinced it ever came along. I enjoy multi-generational storytelling, but this approach seemed disjointed here and I was often confused as to which mother or daughter or timeframe she was describing. None of the characters were very engaging and mostly they all seemed distant from me as a reader. At the end, I wasn't sure what the main character Cath had resolved or what she wanted or what she was hoping to find in her journey to her grandparents' home and back. Essentially she was on some sort of journey but she never got there in any sense, and it seemed like nothing ever really happened overall. Sue Miller has some excellent books and I would definitely recommend "While I Was Gone". Though I wouldn't dissuade anyone from reading "The World Below" since it had one mildly interesting story, that of Cath's grandmother Georgia, I certainly wouldn't be able to recommend the book overall.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Book
Review: Sue Miller is a wonderful writer and expresses things quite well in her books. This one is no exception. She introduces us to Cath and her grandmother Georgia. Cath is a twice divorced mother who has inherited her grandmother's home and decides to go there to sort things out in her life. She discovers her grandmother's diaries and we get a glimpse into her life and times. The story on TB and the stay at the san was really well done. I did feel like I knew Georgia's character better than Cath's though. I enjoyed the flashbacks and the development of the characters. An enjoyable book. Worth the read.
Rating: 
Summary: The World Below
Review: Sue Miller knows characters. She knows how to build them so subtly that you feel like you knew them right from the start. That is what happens here with both Cath and her grandmother, Georgia. We learn about Georgia as a young woman, what she went thru in the sanitorium, her marriage, and her relationship with Cath. And we go through Cath's need to just get away from everything she knows in California and soak in her past in Vermont. Those looking for plot driven novels need not apply here. This is solely character driven and if you like these characters, you will fly through this one.
Rating:
Summary: Never disappointing
Review: Sue Miller writes about people we know. She writes about simple things we do like going to the grocery store, getting divorced, opening trunks in the attic and finding treasures. You think you should be bored when your reading her books. After all, the characters are mundane, suburban, real. But you're not bored. You're completely sucked into their stories, their lives, even their small not quite shocking at all revelations. And like Elizabeth Berg she says something so big in a story so simple that the impact is quite memorable. The World Below makes an impression. It makes a point. I like it when stories have a point.
Rating:
Summary: A decent read...
Review: Sue Miller's latest novel, *The World Below*, examines the lives of two women across generations. Georgia Rice, at age nineteen, is sent to a sanitorium for tuberculosis treatment. Her experiences during the six month stay resound clearly in her diaries as her granddaughter, Cath, reads them almost six decades later. Cath, a fifty-something divorcee (twice), has raised three children and needs to determine where she wants to take her life. She decides to move cross country from her familiar teaching job in San Francisco to her grandparents' home in Vermont. As she begins her new life in Vermont, she discovers her grandmother's diaries. These diaries give Cath new insight into Georgia's existence and helps her make some decisions of her own. The novel wasn't my favorite by Sue Miller (*While I Was Gone* wins that prize), but it was definitely worth the read. I'd suggest *When Mountains Walked* by Kate Wheeler as a possible alternative.
Rating:
Summary: Should Have Ditched Cath
Review: This is one of those books that jumps back and forth between the present and the past, the lives of Georgia, the grandmother, and Cath, the granddaughter, not quite successfully. Sue Miller has a beautiful, subtle, understated writing style, and I found her portrayal of Georgia's life fascinating - a turn-of-the-century girl exhausting herself caring for her relatives, a doctor who deliberately exagerates her TB diagnoses her to put her in a sanitorium to get her away from that life, her love in the sanitorium and her marriage to the much older doctor, etc. But the book kept jumping bath to Cath, a fifty something modern divorcee who was incredibly whiny and boring. I wish the book had been solely about Georgia, and explored the themes of Georgia's life in depth - it would have been a masterpiece.
As it was, it got pretty confusing, and the parts about Cath were mind-numbing.
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