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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
206 of 215 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fine writing and real feelings,
This review is from: While I Was Gone (Hardcover)
This was my first experience reading Sue Miller. I was drawn tothe book by the multitude of good reviews from reputable publications, and those reviewers were right about this work. It resonates, it moves, it captures character, memory, emotion, and some of the mystery of human nature. The characters became so life-like for me while I was reading that I found myself thinking about them, psychoanalyzing their motivations, seeing their faces in front of me. I guess the book reached me in particular because I fall into Jo and Daniel's generation. I too experienced life in a group house in the late sixties and early seventies and I easily related to all the yearning and pent up idealism of those times. A word about Sue Miller's penchant for detail: I think what good literature does is sort out the details of living and make a work of art from them. The details draw you in, and finally produce emotional impact that stays with you. So if you have no patience for detail and just want lots of action, a la trash novels, stay away from this one. I for one am happy I discovered Sue Miller. The Good Mother is next.
154 of 166 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A WORTHWHILE READ -- A GOOD OPRAH PICK,
By Nancy Martin (Pennsylvania (orig. NY)) - See all my reviews
This review is from: While I Was Gone (Oprah's Book Club) (Paperback)
When Oprah announced this as her latest pick, I was happy because this book has been sitting in my bookcase for over a year waiting for me to read it. I finished it in two days and was happy I finally had the impetus to read a Sue Miller offering. She is a gifted and talented writer but in this book she gives you a main character, Jo Becker, who you love at times and want to strangle at others. It's terrible to say but during the book I kept saying to myself, "what a jerk she is." I know that's not a great descriptive word but it fits. This is a character who always thinks there is something better around the corner and although she's been married for 25 years, wanderlust is lurking around every corner. While devoted at times (to animals), I found her shallow both in the way she treated her husband's profession as well as her daughters. Over the years, Jo had lived a kind of quirky lifestyle and 25 years later, an old friend comes back into her life and wreaks havoc. The unfortunate thing is that it didn't have to be this way but wonderful Jo allowed it to be. For anyone who has lived through the 60's or even thought about free, communal living and is now living in just the opposite lifestyle, you will probably find this book as page-turning as I did. I felt that I was rushing the book because I wanted to see how it would end. This is not your typical Oprah dysfunctional family book set in the South -- rather it is set in the North but a bit dysfunctional all the same. Definitely worth the read.
137 of 150 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not Sue Miller's Best Work,
This review is from: While I Was Gone (Oprah's Book Club) (Paperback)
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.
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