Rating: 
Summary: Why Don't You Stay Gone
Review: I won't say that I utterly hated the book. I think Miller is a talented writer. She brings certain psychological nuances to consciousness. The character of Dana was very strong, and the symbolism in actions by her family members was an artistic treat. However, I felt like the author was simply celebrating mediocraty. For her to write a book about the fantasies and unsettling of a person bent for some excitement and then coupling it with the unlikely "passionate murder" was just too fantastic for me. Murder is overdone, and I thought that part was a big yawn. Her simple life was boring and led the reader to absolutely nothing to ask of him or herself.
Rating:
Summary: fractured
Review: I thought this book had too much information that didn`t mean much and not enough explanation at one time to explain enough. It was too long for the storyit told. I didn`t really like any of the characters but if I had to pick one it would be Cass because she was believable. Jo seemed to lack substace and even at the end of the book I still didn`t know her husband.My favorite parts of the book are her get right to the heart of it descriptions of people and situations such as, Know this about me and yet LOVE ME----PLEASE or on page 154 where her grown children realize their mom had a past life that didn`t include them. Your children never think of you in any other way than mom or dad and especially mom. Other than those few really great descriptions I just thought this book lacked depth and so did it`s character.
Rating: 
Summary: A Must Read!
Review: This is the first Sue Miller book I have read. I'm hooked! I could not put the book down. The story line kept me intrigued about what could happen next. I felt that Jo was stuck in the past, but was desperatly wanting to move on, but Dana kept pulling her back to the past. I feel that Eli should of told the police the truth. I thought that maybe Eli told the truth so that Jo would actually turn him in. Because now there are two people who know his secret. No matter what he has done in his life since that time doesn't make a wrong a right. He is trying to convince himself that what he has done is alright now. A wrong is a wrong and always will be. I'm still not sure how to take Jo's daughters. They seem to be from another world than their parents. Daniel was more confusing. You never really knew where he was coming from for sure. I would definetly recommend this book as a good read. Can't wait to read another Sue Miller book.
Rating: 
Summary: Oprah is right on! Go girl!
Review: Although I have never read the book, I can tell by the little picture of the cover that Sue Miller is in in the right ballpark! That crazy Sue. I would buy this book, but I have only got $6.47 cents. Maybe next week!
Rating:
Summary: WHILE I WAS READING
Review: While I was reading, I thought: does the fact that this was an Oprah Book Selection influence my buying it? Absolutely. I did it on purpose: let's see what junk is on sale this month. I wanted my intellect to be challenged by a popular opinion, so that I could laugh it out and throw it out.Not so. I was surprised... With awesome perception, Sue Miller deals with those hard-to-pin-down, ephemeral feelings of dislocation we experience as life moves on, leaving us momentarily detached from what has gone before and what is to come. In this surprisingly (as I said, I was surprised - underestimation is my middle name) beautifully constructed and important novel, the author confronts many of life's most difficult questions with admirable depth and sagacity. Here we go: - In the hot summer of 1968, Jo Becker abandons a marriage without love and a life her parents had dreamt for her: under the false name of Licia Stead, she finds shelter in a commune in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It's the beginning of a free and happy existence, where all seems possible. But as in all dreams, this hippie adventure too is destined to expire, and in the worst possible way: Jo-Licia discovers the corpse of Dana, a girl from the commune, brutally killed and without apparent motive.--- Fade-out --- The Nineties: a whole life past. Jo is a splendid mature woman of fifty, with a profitable vet surgery, a new husband who loves her, three adult daughters, a fine house in the countryside. Yet, there is something missing, something from her past she has never revealed to anybody. So, when she casually meets Eli Mayhew, a friend from the Cambridge days, Jo is suddenly confronted by a dilemma, struggling between attraction to this man, the memories and the world he represents, and the orderly and regular life she now leads with her husband. --- New development: the terrible secret Eli reveals to Jo, during a romantic candle-lit dinner, will devastate her existence once more, making all her projects crumble. The author is magic, and I take my hat off to her. Overcoming my initial reluctance towards an empty bestseller, Sue Miller has led me to probe the abyss of anxiety that a life seemingly normal can in fact conceal. With Jo, she masterly and precisely creates an astounding character, pitilessly seizing on her nuances and contradictions. And while she drags me, page after page, along the unravelling of her story, she also makes me ponder on the profound meaning of faithfulness and betrayal, passion and remorse.--- My soul was conquered...
Rating: 
Summary: Reality bites the dust by the end
Review: I wasn't expecting what I got in While I was Gone. I started reading and with great surprise zipped through about the first hundred pages wanting to learn more and more about this incredibly complex woman. Jo is perhaps one of the more interesting female characters in any of the books Oprah has chosen lately. She has faults and yet I loved her even more for them. Coupled with the little things like how the tips of Dana's fingers turned white as she grasped the seat or how the dog seemd to grin helplessly every time it panted, those faults help establish While I Was Gone as a real exploration of real people. But then unfortunately it turns silly. Was the bit about Eli supposed to be revelatory because if it was I didn't get it. You could see it coming a mile off and the pathetic attempt at romance between Jo and Eli just didn't work. I know some will say well it wasn't supposed to, but c'mon. Miller obviously has a beautiful eye for detail and I'll give another of her books a go but oh just for that edge of reality that she so carefully weaves through her words on the first hundred pages to have continued 'til the end of the book. While I Was Gone could have been something damn near perfect.
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Summary: PAGETURNER!
Review: What a great book. I had trouble getting into the storyline the first few chapters, but once the author talked about Jo's past I was hooked. I didn't want to stop reading it. I think many women will be able to relate to the story. I know I have caught myself thinking back about the "good ole' days" and wondering what if? If you want to be enlightned, and entertained I would recommend reading this book. You will not regret it.
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Summary: One of the best Oprah selections so far...
Review: It's been a long time since I've found a novel as completely engrossing as this one. Joey, a wife, a mother of three and respected veterinarian, finds herself caught up in her past when former housemate Eli Mayhew moves to town. Eli dredges up memories and feelings from Joey's past threatening her marriage with her husband, Daniel. Murder, adultery and forgiveness bounce around the pages causing a turmoil that every reader can relate to. I don't want to give anything away, so I'll just leave it at this. This is a great novel and those who have been disappointed with Oprah's selections in the past will most definitely enjoy this one. Also recommend The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve. -Melissa Galyon
Rating:
Summary: A SUMMER READ MUST !
Review: This book was a page turner from the begining. I thought this book was almost the best i have read this year. You can really get in touch with the characters if your a wife and mother. I highly recommend it !
Rating:
Summary: Is Sue Miller running out of steam?
Review: I remember being stunned by the beauty of the writing in earlier books by Sue Miller. She hits her peak right at the start of this one, unfortunately. The first scene is beautiful, and...if you look closely, highly reminiscent of the final scene in one of her other, better books, FAMILY PICTURES. Both give the reader a sense of suspended time that is exquistely crafted. As this book was written much later, I consider it derivative to have tried to recreate the feeling I got from FAMILY PICTURES. I did enjoy the "trip" back to the Boston of the 60's-70's, but the characters in Jo's commune- type house were poorly delineated. At times I was confused by the point of the whole thing. The weakly descibed men vis a vis the vibrant "life force" of the other woman, Dana, in the house--what was Miller's intention here? I needed way more heat generated and less descriptions of meals prepared (this shopping and preparing of food is a device she uses throughout the book I found exhausting. I never want to eat or cook another Holiday meal again!). In the second half of the book, after the narrator's two worlds of past and present collide and intermingle, I didn't believe many of the scenes at a gut level. I didn't "grasp" why her husband put up with her, and I didn't like her children. And I didn't much like her, either. It's hard to go with a book one hundred percent when you aren't crazy about the person you are reading about. I am a lover of Sue Miller's books, but this one did not move me. If you want to see how well this woman can write, try one of her earlier works. best wishes, Jean
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