While I Was Gone

Rating:
Summary: Gripping, evocative, and beautifully written
Review: "While I Was Gone" is one of those rare books that combines excellent writing, believable characters, and situations that keep the pages turning. When the main character's long-buried past collides suddenly with her present, Jo (from whose point of view the story is told) takes the reader on a disquieting ride. At times you want to shout at her for being so reckless, but at least you're never bored.

"While I Was Gone" also offers a unique glimpse into a mature relationship -- how inspiring to see an author write about a couple with an interesting life, and genuine intimacy, after the kids are grown! Additionally, it reminds the reader of the damage that can be done when these safe and steady relationships are taken for granted. The nature of secrets (those that should be exposed and those that might be better off hidden) and memory are also deftly dealt with.

Rating:
Summary: Read it in spite of Oprah's recommendation...
Review: Last year a woman who was a "radical" and a fugitive was found in some suburban town where she was "loved by all". This book concerns fugitives from other lives. In this book, the present Jo is much different from the persona she adopted when she lived in a Cambridge Massachusetts commune in the 60's. She has gone suburban, though not really as she lives in the sticks. The tension between Jo and her husband the minister and Jo's longing for something else, something special, reminds me of the Feminine Mystique. Please don't get turned off by that analogy as this book is a good read. Yet the emptiness of Jo's life both in the 60s and presently, despite her change in circumstances, is very telling. The introduction of Eli, a long lost commune member who lived with Jo in the 60s and now lives close by in a large expensive development shows how these baby boomers have "grown and matured". Of course, you can make whatever judgment you like about the change of the 60s generation into a generation that values material wealth. This is one of the underpinnings of the book. Add to the recipe some dysfunctional but entertaining almost adult children, and you have a very readable story. I feel as though Jo is very distant. You never really get to know her. Sue Miller writes terrific books that hook you, although this one took me almost 20 pages to get hooked, which is slow for Ms. Miller. If you have never read Sue Miller, this is a good book. If you have read her, you will not be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: A thought provoking read
Review: I hesitated to buy this book- I bought it and did not read it for awhile. Finally in desperation for something to read, I picked it up again. I identified with Jo, her thoughts and her feelings and it made me want to turn the pages to see what happens. I am not married, nor do I have children, but there was something about the way she processed her life that at times made me want to kick her for being so stupid, but at others could say- yep, know how you are feeling. It was thought provoking and a departure from my usual Patricia Cornwall books. I enjoyed this book and I am glad I read it.

Rating:
Summary: While I Was Gone
Review: I really did not enjoy the story. I found the main character to be weak and unaware of all that was right with her life. I didn't like all the thoughts of infidelity either. Her husband should have left her.

Rating:
Summary: A Heroine to Feel Superior To
Review: Jo Becker is the kind of character that readers will love, partly because of Sue Miller's deliciously sensuous descriptions of her rather ordinary life. But Jo is also a protagonist the reader can feel superior to. As has been pointed out by critics, Jo throws over her family commitments in order to satisfy her impulses. The interweaving currents of her choices wound two husbands, a mother, and three daughters throughout the course of the novel, and it is easy for everyone (including the author herself) to disregard Jo as shallow. But Jo is a woman who, after all, is simply trying to find a place of inner mooring in a world that still regards the dark impulses of the psyche as things to be feared and disdained; her tragedy at midlife is that she has found no language through which to make a relationship with her own conflicting selves, and that she projects her "good" self onto family members who are all too eager to villify her. In the end, her attempt to find integrity--by reconciling with her past, by daring to flirt with her erotic self, and by going to the police with what she knows--is met with a stark reality that is too easily overlooked by the undiscerning reader: Misogyny is as alive in 1999 as it was in 1968.

Rating:
Summary: While I Was Gone
Review: While I Was Gone was a story that came up a little to short for my liking. It was a very slow read for ¾ of the book. The last ¼ of the book is what made me rate this book as a three instead of a zero. I wouldn't tell someone not to read it but I could think of many other books that I would recommend before While I Was Gone.

Rating:
Summary: A book about humanity, about the connections we make...
Review: I've enjoyed Sue Miller before, but of all her books this one really resonated within. Jo Becker struggles with issues and questions many of us do. Although her past may be a bit extraordinary in the fact that she found her best friend dead after a brutal attack, Jo herself is not an extraordinary character. She is flawed as a daughter, wife and mother. At times, I wanted to shout at her to OPEN herself to her husband, to her children. But Jo, like the rest of us, is a product of her upbringing and can open herself emotionally no more than I can open my mouth and speak French. For me, the book was about making connections. It was about how everything we do and say along with those things we DON'T do and DON'T say form the people we are. It reaffirms there is no such thing as a perfect family or a perfect marriage, but each of us can find happiness within the parameters of who we are and what we have. Sue Miller's dialog and description ring so true to life that there wasn't a time I could not visualize the setting or hear the characters. I wanted more from this book, more closure on the connections between Jo and Daniel, between Jo and her daughters. It seems to me, however, that the best books ALWAYS leave me wanting more.

Rating:
Summary: The underlying point matters most.
Review: What a slow star up book. The middle...the end...the entire book did nto flow as others I have read. Sue Miller created Joey, the main character. She was, as some middle aged women become, confused about what she wanted. The past was reintroduced to her by the meeting of the wife of Eli, a man she once knew. This sparked up a time when Jo lived as Licia (a nickname of sorts} in a house with other guys and gals... During this past one of the girls, Dana, is killed. The papers ripped their life style apart, but they never found out who committed the crime. Jo and her present husband, the minister, Daniel have three children. Their girls are brought into the picture...blablabla...one daughter is like Jo, one says Jo is SECRETIVE, one has piercings all over her body... I think my review is as confusing and out of place as this book. The story line brought in characters that, seemingly, had no impact on the whole story. Usually Oprah's book club picks are good, but I must disagree. You may want to take my advice and pass this book up. Move on to something that flows to one final point!

Rating:
Summary: WAS EXPECTING MORE
Review: I enjoyed some parts of this book but I have to say, I was a bit disappointed. It seemed much too wordy for me and I found the end anti-climatic.

Rating:
Summary: When Do I Get to the Good Part?
Review: Sorry, but I am dissapointed in this book, this is the first book I have read that Oprah has recommended. I am almost to the middle of the book and I am still waiting for something to happen to pick up the pace. From the beginning of the book I find it boring. I guess I was expecting too much since it was on Oprah's Book Club list. Sue Miller decribes the chararacters and surroundings in too much detail for me. Let's get on to the plot of the story! Definitely not a must read, can't put down book to me! Hopefully, as I struggle thru it the plot will pick up.