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Swap the books you've read, for some you haven't!
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While I Was Gone (Oprah's Book Club) by Sue Miller
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While I Was Gone (Oprah's Book Club) by Sue Miller
Review: I will not rehash the details of this book, but I will tell you that if you have little time to read and therefore have to seek out quality literature that will allow you to escape from the daily grind and perhaps even provoke thought, this is not the book for you. There are some well-written passages in this novel, but that's about it. Like many other readers, you may want to scream about the lack of closure and the injustice of it all. That a murderer gets away with a cold, brutal killing and life goes on will be insufferable for many.
That a woman chooses without much thought to jeopardize her solid, perhaps too comfortable marriage for a relationship with a man from her past - now that could happen. Yet the question remains, do we as readers ever develop any empathy for the characters in the story? The answer in my case and in the case of many other reader-reviewers is an emphatic no.
You decide, but if you seek out memorable works you may be very disappointed in this disjointed, affected novel.
Review: Jo Becker enters a marriage which her parents think is suitable, but which soon seems like a trap to her. She runs away to Boston and ends up living with several others her age. She loves the closeness she feels with the others in the house and the lack of responsibility in their lifestyle. When her closest friend in the house is killed, the group breaks up and they go their separate ways. She returns to her home, divorces her husband and meets Daniel whom she marries. She becomes a vet and she and Daniel become the parents of three girls. Her life is going well until one of her old housemates shows up and she feels an undeniable attraction to him, threatening everything she has come to hold dear.
I found Jo Becker to be a very unlikeable character. Her solution to any problem seemed to be to run away from it, regardless of what effect this had on anyone else. She came across as selfish and secretive, depending on the steadfastness and goodness of her husband Daniel, but not reciprocating these qualities in her relationship to him. Her housemates were equally unlikeable, totally wrapped up in themselves and doing what pleased them, again with no regard for anyone else. The author's gift seems to be in describing her characters' thoughts and actions in a way which makes them very real, but I couldn't get past the self-centeredness and lack of insight which made the main character so unlikeable and thus, so unsympathetic.
Review: I'm trying to diversify my reading. Chose this one based solely on blurbs.
Writing is good, competent, but not magical or even making me want to anxiously flip the pages.
The character is a bit cliched...and there is too much telling and self-examination used to move the story forward.
If Miller had chosen to delve into a relationship crisis, I think Jo and Dana would have been much more interesting...much more interesting to follow and see how it resolves itself. Miller skimmed the surface of possibilities with those two, but then didn't ultimately "go there", as another reviewer said.
I read some of Miller's bio and it seems she definitely tries to write what she knows...
An okay read redeemed by good writing and a few memorable scenes.
Review: First you get to marry a doctor, then you get bored and become a Bohemian, find some drawbacks there and so finally you get to marry somebody that understands and appreciates you. You get to take care of and understand animals as a veterinarian. But your life still seems to miss some spark and so a murder mystery is thrown into the mix. All of your friends are affiliated with Harvard, Berkeley, or some other high prestige place--no Illinois State or blue color workers for you. This was a truly awful book written for dreamy status-seekers with no empathy or understanding of the real world.
Review: This book was in places very beautifully written but for all of that I found the heroine and the choices she made quite selfish. Here's a woman with a loving husband, a prosperous career she loves and not a worry in the world. She's willing to toss it all away because, to me, she seems either bored or regretful that her life is so easy (we should all be so lucky!). This made her very difficult to sympathize with and made me want to strangle her. I did enjoy the fact that in the end her "problem" was going to stare her in the face for a good number of years to come. Serves her right, if you ask me . . .
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