Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Oct 20, 2007

Sarah rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

3 comments like (5 people liked it)

Sep 02, 2008

Kate rated it:

This story of a wife and mother suddenly revisiting her past had great moments and held my attention. Still it had long, boring passages.

I found the protagonist annoying and self-indulgent in a way that didn't jibe at all with the way she thought of herself. Further, her inability to see it, even in the end left me unsatisfied.

At points, her descriptions and observations, while interesting and well drawn, dragged on. Her focus on minutia rang untrue to me, her description More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Mar 15, 2008

Erin rated it:

I'm two-thirds of the way through and am not sure how I feel about this book. I think I'm hitting a slump with it, the action is stalling and I'm not sure where it is going. It has been interesting reading about a mother/wife who is at the point in her life where her daughters are grown and moved out of the house. It makes me think about how I will handle that stage of my life someday.

UPDATE: A year or so ago I read a book by Sue Miller called The World Below. I really enjoyed th More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 15, 2009

Chris rated it:

I thought this one was a bit clunky at first. It didn't begin to flow for me until about the third chapter, but once it did, I sopped it up pretty eagerly. The book deals with selves. The ones we were, the ones we've become, and the ways we choose to incorporate our pasts into our present lives. It deals with self-justifications of the shameful, hurtful or otherwise negative actions we play out. Honesty and trust within the familial structure are weighed heavily against the images one hopes More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 01, 2007

Lori rated it:

One of the benefits to reading So Damn Much is I often forget what I've consumed, allowing me to discover it all over again.

I spent the first 20 pages of While I Was Gone thinking it felt very familiar, but I couldn't quite put it all together. I was viewing the story through a veil of forgetfulness.

So on this reread, I was able to invest in the characters, immerse in the world and be surprised all over again.

5 comments like (5 people liked it)

Sep 24, 2008

Beth rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 22, 2008

Nikki rated it:

I expect every Oprah's book club pick to get 3 stars (unless the book's by Toni Morrison). While I Was Gone is that special breed of book that plummeted to 2- and 1-star territory after chapter 10.

The novel started out well enough. I empathized with Jo, the main character, as she looked back on running away from an unsatisfying relationship. I understood that you can detest a particular lifestyle at one point of your life, and find it's exactly what you need at another. (Happy relati More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2007

Jennifer rated it:

I finally finished this after what feels like forever (not a problem with the book so much as a problem with my schedule). I think the drawn out reading time did not do the book any favors. Also knowing the ending ahead of time due to our book club discussion meant I was reading the last third with different preconceptions than before. Even so though, this is a difficult book because Jo, our main character, is not immediately likeable or sympathetic and the decisions she makes don't help impr More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 16, 2008

Susan rated it:

The title pulled me in. The narrator--a middle-aged woman, veterinarian, mother of two grown daughters, wife of a pastor--explores her own life from the vantage point of an intense personal crisis. Memories--from college days in the 60s--catch up with her, though one suspects she slows the forward pace of her immediate life so that they will certainly overtake her. The struggle thus begins--or continues, heightened. Sue Miller's past-becomes-present plot isn't original, but the writer's rende More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 01, 2009

Nancy rated it:

The author says in the back-of-the-book interview that she found it hard to like Jo and I agree with her. I found Jo to be too self-centered and Daniel to be somewhat of a jerk. I also felt the kids were spoiled. No one in this family seems really loving. They're all involved in their own pursuits to the exclusion of everyone else. I agree that Daniel's sermon represents a turning point and was one of the more pleasurable sections. I do find it odd that Jo doesn't participate more in Danie More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 12, 2008

Margaret rated it:

Somewhat unwillingly,I reread this novel for a book group.
And I found details about Sue Miller's style that I had not
paid attention to in my first go round.She is a master of
natural description and I slowed to savor the snow falling
in New England and the pleasures of walking the dogs late on an autumn evening.
Miller strikes me as both a highly moral author and one who is scrupulously honest about her characters inner thoughts and motives. The tension between More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jan 05, 2012

Cynthia rated it:

I believe the title refers to the times when Jo/Felicia, the protagonist, is not present in her own life, because she's distracted and not paying attention...something we're all guilty of. She was opaque, reserved, dignified or do you call her secretive??

This first person narrative is told by the mother in the family, as she recalls her 'thoughtlessly' conventional life...and her prior identity.

Some of the names of people & places, like Stead family name (instead? ;-) and the More...

0 comments like

Dec 28, 2011

John rated it:

My only experience with this author was her excellent novel "The Good Mother" which I read 20 years ago. Don't waste time with the movie (unless you really love Diane Keaton, a vice that is not really wholly objectionable). The Good Mother was a poignant tale about a failed marriage, a reckless romance and a custody fight. Like the "Good Mother", "While I Was Gone" is a story told from a distinctly female sensitivity. My daughters had ridiculed me derisively a f More...

0 comments like

Oct 21, 2011

Deb rated it:

I think that most of us feel separate from the person we once were, as though our earlier life belongs to someone we used to know; a person we have now lost touch with. This is certainly true for Jo Becker, whose restlessness and unhappiness in her first marriage led her to escape to another city where she lived under an assumed name in a house shared with several roommates. Years later, when Jo's daughters have all left home to live their own lives, Jo is adjusting to her empty nest with her m More...

0 comments like

Mar 13, 2010

Marci rated it:

Who among us hasn't felt restless at some point in their lives. Well Jo Becker is riddled with it from a very early age--as she runs from a marriage she got into because of expectation. When she realizes she's not happy, she runs away, changes her life and finds the friendship of her contemporaries. When a tragic event occurs, she is forced to go back to her life and start anew. On the journey, she meets her second husband. Together, they start a fufilled life--at least that is the premise, unti More...

0 comments like

Dec 07, 2009

Dee rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Jun 17, 2009

Eustacia rated it:

I got this book from my best friend, Shari. This book had been on my list of books to read for awhile while I was working at the bookstore. I received this from Shari over the weekend and started it yesterday. The writing is amazing, powerful. I feel drawn into the story already. The reviews are all stellar, there are pages and pages of excellent literary reviews, and in this case, so far, they all feel dead on.

Take these two quotes from the book so far. The first describes the More...

0 comments like

Jan 19, 2009

Kimberly rated it:

I did not care for this book.........the main character risks her marraige by contemplating an affair, backs out of the affair when she finds out something about the man with whom she's thinking about sleeping with, admits it to her husband, then seems bewildered when her husband is hurt and feels betrayed. I cannot identify with the main character at all; I came away wanting to slap her silly!! It was a waste of time!

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 01, 2009

Stephy rated it:

Can we say Boring? Oh it really was...She jumped from her current life to her teenage years back and forth like a ping pong ball..And when I finished the book I sat there question what was the whole point of reading it? I mean yes there was an issue that was solved but it just didn't say much about the story. I found a review by another woman on good reads and I have to say I agree with her 100 percent...She says
I liked this book until I realized that I has 1/3 of the way through and co More...

0 comments like

Apr 30, 2009

Jlawton rated it:

"When I was most confused by her, it helped me to remember myself at her age---just that egocentric, just that lost, just that uncaring about the pain I might be causing others, because I felt I was in so much pain myself. " p 133

"We didn't know what would happen next: that was our great gift. The gift of youth. The thing we miss, it seems to me, no matter what we've made of our lives, as we get older. When we do know what will happen next. And More...

0 comments like

Dec 16, 2009

Liddy rated it:

I read this for my couples counseling class (we had to then write a paper imagining that we were the main characters' pastor) and quite enjoyed it. The setting -- a New England town quite like the one where I grew up -- was richly imagined, and Miller offers realistic insights into her narrator's inner life.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 07, 2008

Stephanie rated it:

This is the book I read on vacation in Hilton Head, South Carolina, this past summer. It was a good book, but depressing.. the main character wasn't very likable and was very self-centered, so I had a difficult time relating to her. I can explain more after the baby stops climbing on me...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 26, 2011

Mehru rated it:

While I was gone by Sue Miller was an 'Okay' book. It was interesting at times but it is 80% filled with the character Joe's feelings. I know it is supposed to be a part of the book but on the other hand, the story was not too good. Especially the ending! It was sooo LOW! It was very sudden and dull. The killer refused, she gave up and so did the police like what the hell! Nothing exciting. All over in a flash!
That really blew me off i mean there should have been an exciting ending.
More...

0 comments like

Oct 12, 2011

Beth rated it:

This is my second book by Sue Miller in the past week. What I like and dislike about these two books is that you don't really know where they are going. It's nice to not be able to figure out the ending by page 20; on the other hand, along the way you ask yourself, "Where the heck am I?"

In this book, the main character Jo flashes back to living in a commune/close roommate situation in the late 1960s. One of her roommates was killed, and the murder was never solved. The qu More...

0 comments like

Aug 11, 2011

Vanessa rated it:

People can have more depth than they may seem, and the waters can be darker and murkier than those who know them may realize, or EVER realize. That is truer of some more than others, 'tis true. Add to that the complications brought on by people's inherently flawed natures and ability to act in ways even they themselves will find unpredictable; and you have someone who may seem like a stranger even though you've lived with them your whole life. If this is the author's message then I get all of More...

0 comments like

Jul 31, 2011

Kristine rated it:

This book is well written and I enjoyed it. The pace of the book was slower than most and the author added a lot of description of every day life. The main character Jo, spends a lot of time reflecting on her life in her early 20's, she is currently about 50. One of her best friends had been murdered in her 20's and another person who had been in her life at that time re-entered her life. Jo has a nice life, but seems a little removed from it as she is trying to adjust to her children being More...

0 comments like

Oct 25, 2009

Lori rated it:

This book was difficult for me to "get into." I normally love Sue Miller's novels and find that her lyrical style and insightful descriptions of her characters and their motivations are something that I can really identify with. I think what happened here is that Jo the main character was just not likeable. I didn't "buy" her justifications for her secrets and her actions. She was self serving and manipulative.
The second half of the book is when the pace picks up and I More...

0 comments like

Jul 08, 2009

Sarah rated it:

I just joined Goodreads in April, and added all the books I've read since then, totally forgetting about this book. Which, by the way, I read 3 weeks ago.

My grandmother gave me a copy to read, so I dutifully did, and I did enjoy the author's excellent use of imagery, and I can say she has a strong grasp on language. In such a way it stands out in a pleasurable manner.

That said, if I didn't remember reading it, I can't give it more than 2 stars. ALSO, I am a 27 year More...

0 comments like

Jun 07, 2010

Christina rated it:

A compelling story about a very conflicted woman on the precipice of a classic mid-life crisis. Told in the first person the narrative is very easy to follow and also done well enough that you find yourself in her world very easily even as she flashes back and forth through her memories. Jo is a study of impulsiveness and unintended secrecy. She has everything she could want in life and she *knows* it, but....the classic BUT.

I wont spoil it, but there is an interesting twist which, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 28, 2010

Carin rated it:

Thank God book club is tonight. Because the minute I closed this book (in fact, a few pages from the end even), I was torn by a desperate desire to discuss this book in depth with someone! So many intriguing topics and issues she brings up. One that struck me as very profound is this: Jo has a happy life. Three young adult daughters more or less succeeding in the real world, a successful work life, a wonderful husband, happy marriage, cute dogs, adorable house. And yet, (or perhaps because of) s More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)