Rating: 
Summary: A fairly dull read
Review: While I have read and enjoyed most of Oprah's selections, this book was a let-down. I kept hoping that it would become more interesting, and that I would develop some feeling or empathy for the characters. Instead, I had to force myself to finish the book.The principal problem with this book is that most of the characters are cliche and two-dimensional. The only multi-dimensional character, the protagonist, Jo, is unsympathetic. She seems to bottle up her emotions, and then act in an extremely self-centered manner. While I was curious regarding the "whodunit" portion of the book, the resolution was not believable, and I found myself really not caring for the people involved (except,maybe, the murder victim and Jo's husband). In an interview with the author at the back of the edition that I read, she said, in effect, that she liked the story, but had a hard time writing it, and did not relate to Jo. I believe this explains why the book drags, is repetitive and tedious. I note that some readers appear to have loved this book, but others had sentiments similar to mine. Maybe this it either "clicks" or does not "click" with you.
Rating:
Summary: Feminests take a stand!
Review: I think this book portrays women as weak, helpless human beings. Women do not need to depend on their husbands for everything. Take a stand! This is wrong! Should we be stuck in the kitchen wearing aprons? NO! Actually, I'm just joshin' with ya. This book was awesome, or was it? You be the judge. I rather enjoyed this book.
Rating: 
Summary: I have always loved sue miller
Review: ever since THE GOOD MOTHER I have been entranced with this fine author. There is no novel of hers I would not heartily recommend; she is in the company of anne tyler, jane hamilton, and jane smiley in that she never dissapoints, alwyays creates frightening real, seemingly ordinary but enigmatic, multi-layered characters, and a plot that moves along like a brook. oprah has done an outstanding job in choosing this book....now let the masses consume the work of a subtle and masterful writer...
Rating: 
Summary: The Costs is much too Great when you look for answers....
Review: that lie in the past... I read this book a plane flight I took last spring (march 1999) & it will remain a story I will return to in my mind when I begin to question my own past; and wonder whether or not I made correct judgements....both; then & now. While reading this I was amazed at the J.'s tenacity to get at the truth; irregardless of the personal costs. Although I understand her, not everyone does, including in that group her own husband...So in the end; does the truth really matter?
Rating: 
Summary: Read this and wish you were reading it, While You were Gone
Review: I have enjoyed Sue Miller in the past, but this book just didn't do it for me. While the premise got my interest, the plot is so thinly constructed and the characters so unexceptional, I plowed my way through the book thinking, "I wish I, too, were gone." Finally, the resolution is disappointing and one closes the book thinking, "What a dissatisfying ending to a dissatisfying book."
Rating:
Summary: Not Sue Miller's Best Work
Review: While I Was Gone is the story of a fifty-something professional woman(she's a veterinarian), with a great husband, terrific daughters and a distant past that comes back to haunt her. During the 60's, the main character, Jo, lived in a group house where one of her roommates was brutally murdered. Now, many years later, another housemate, Eli Mayhew, moves to her small New England town and Jo gets caught up in her past and with this man. This story reads like a soap opera or movie of the week. Jo continually makes bad decisions that almost ruin her marriage and the relationship she has with her daughters. I found the story line very frustrating and at times unbelievable. The characters were not as well drawn and developed as they should have been and their thoughts and actions never made sense to me. Ms Miller is a good writer, with a wonderful ear for dialogue. But, this novel got bogged down in detail and came to a very unsatisfying ending. Readers of Sue Miller will probably like this book, but it left me flat.
Rating:
Summary: what a great book
Review: I loved reading "While I was gone". I have read almost all of Sue Miller's books. They are great. Sue Miller really knows how to write and she makes these stories seem so real and so true. I especially loved "Family Pictures". I am from Chicago and this book brought back a lot of memories. She keeps you interested throughout the entire book. I admire her work and I hope that she continues to write more books.
Rating:
Summary: While I was Gone
Review: I listened to this book on tape and felt the reader was excellent and was able to take you through the emotions Jo was expressing and through the different trials that she was experiencing as a her past came to light!
Rating:
Summary: Unsettling
Review: At first I revelled in the rich prose and the succint and brilliant articulations of Jo's feelings of displacement and yearning for her lost youth and its anonymity and promise. I both empathized and sympathized with her and was pulled in to her life and her thoughts, and couldn't wait to learn what was in her heart. But I never did. And as the story unfolded, I felt more and more detached from her; her yearnings were selfish, her scope narrow. If this was because she is meant to be a study of an unevolved "Me Generation" alumnus, then her lack of self-awareness and was precise. I don't have to love the characters to love a work of fiction, but I began to lose interest in Jo and her destiny because I stopped caring about her, and in fact, began to resent her. (I felt betrayed, like she had tricked me into admiring her because she was good at describing feelings. But then her feelings weren't interesting any more.) Finally, the book depressed me. I don't even like looking at it anymore. It affected me the way an overcast, humid day affects me; I was left wishing for either a full-fledged storm or a breakthrough of light and air, and neither came.
Rating:
Summary: Preferred "the Good Mother", but still an excellent book
Review: I am shocked at the extent of the negative comments readers have made about this book. I quite enjoyed this book, despite the fact that it is somewhat "flawed" --given Miller's amazing debut, and I am really pleased to see it chosen for Oprah's Book Club. Hopefully, this choice will expose her work to a larger number of readers than would otherwise have been the case. As a working and commuting mother with little time to waste on most of the fiction produced today--which I find to be either formulaic and trite potboilers, or self-conscious and pretentious bombast--I was engaged by this book within the first five pages. The story is very well written, and is fairly suspenseful with much emotional tension successfully conveyed. The worst one might say about it in the context of Miller's earlier work is that it doesn't have the coherent unity that "the Good Mother" did and its characterization is somewhat weak. I didn't quite understand why Jo remained so closed, despite the affection and warmth she inspired in others--and I did think the author could have done a better job at explaining why. This flaw accounts for my having given the book only four stars, although it did not prevent me from staying interested enough in both the characters and the plot to stay up quite late on several successive nights in order to finish the novel. I would suggest that these are very small criticisms in light of the poor quality of much of what is published today. I have no trouble at all recommending this book very highly. Miller is a very articulate writer with an ability to convey mood and emotion that many a good writer would envy. Although this is not her best work, it's still heads and tails above most of today's offerings. I would hope that many readers would try this book, as well as "The Good Mother", one of the most memorable books I have read in the last twenty years, in order to get acquainted with a very talented and promising writer.
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