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 relationships are all about finding the right person, right?) I even found myself missing the dynamic of having roommates.

The main problem with this book is that Miller makes Jo completely unlikable. She is easily bored with her life and makes poor decisions based on that boredom and self-centered indulgence. It turns out some of her decisions are misguided, and I would have relished in the character's embarrassment if I still cared about the story at all by the end of the book.

The worst part is that Miller admits she didn't like Jo and began this novel because she had writer's block on another book. Oh well, I'll just chock this one up to a bad read.

I really enjoyed this book. I found it pretty slow to get into in the beginning; but once it picked up, it was definitely hard to put down.

I have to agree with other reviewers that Miller does a good job of describing the joy our main character finds in working with animals, and her delight in her New England surroundings. Miller shines in some of those passages.

Unfortunately, our main character is ultimately unlikeable. She seems perfectly reasonable, and then somewhat suddenly reveals aspects of herself which are a bit off-kilter. I was ultimately disappointed in the novel because she was so self-absorbed that I wasn't able to enjoy the last third of the book.

Sue Miller is a fine writer. But - someday I'll learn that I don't like books that were selected for Oprah's Book Club. Every one I've read is a morose downer. There was nothing at all to like about the female protagonist. She'd managed to mess up every relationship she'd ever been involved in, including her marriages, friendships, children and too-good-to-be-true husband. This is nothing against the in-depth writing and plot development. It just wasn't my cup of tea.

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) she is not happy. Her whole life has been a striving. To figure out who she is, what she wants, what will make her happy, how to find it, is this the right man? What about this one? How to raise the children well? To open her own practice? Make a marriage work? And once she got everything squared away, instead of being content and happy, she is restless and discontented. And I worry - is that the fate we all end up with? Do we all end up like that? Do people create chaos in our lives in order to feel alive? Feel like life is still moving forward? I feel like I am more of a Daniel kind of person, Jo's husband, and can be content with a quiet life with few bumps, but will I find myself with a Jo, who eventually will become unmoored by the monotony?

The author interview and the book club questions also talk a lot about the theme of confessions. About how the confessions impact both the confessor and the confessee. But I think that's superficial. The real theme is secrets. That's what really hurts people. Sadie uses that accusation with her mother like a knife, and it cuts her too. Jo keeps secrets from everyone. Her mother keeps secrets. And despite her daughters all saying they hate it, she's likely passed the secret-keeping down. Most notably in Cass, who most of the time no one knows where she even is. At the end of the book when Jo's visiting her mother, who makes her confession about Jo's father, Jo thinks to herself, "It seems we need someone to know us as we are - with all we have done - and forgive us. We need to tell. We need to be whole in someone's sight: Know this about me, and yet love me. Please.

"But it's too much to ask of other people! Too much. Daniel makes it easier on those around him: God is the one he asks to know him as he is, to see him whole and love him still. But for us others, it seems there must be a person to redeem us to ourselves. It isn't enough, apparently, to know oneself. To forgive oneself, in secret." (261)

Is this really what love is all about? Total honesty? I'm not sure I agree. After all, wasn't Jo burdened by Eli's confession? What was gained by her mother's confession? Didn't Jo hurt Daniel with her confession? I think that sometimes love is biting one's tongue and keeping things to yourself that will only hurt the other person. Often we tell ourselves that we are doing the other person a favor by confessing to them, but mostly we are only doing ourselves a favor and hurting them. I know Ms. Miller would disagree with me here. She goes out of her way to show that honesty is the only option and confession is good for the soul, but I think she goes a bit far at times. For instance, when Sadie is mad at her mother for not telling her that when she was young - long before Sadie was born - she had a friend who was killed. But that's not a secret. It's just something that hasn't come up. I know very few people who know much about their parents' lives before they came into them. Some broad brush strokes, sure. You know how your parents met and when, and the circumstances of their wedding. You might know one or two funny stories from an aunt or uncle from when your mother was a little girl. But is it reasonable to know what happened to a woman your mother knew briefly in her early 20s in another city? I don't think so. If my mother told me a story like this, I'd find it interesting, but it wouldn't even occur to me to be angry or to consider she was hiding something. I think Ms. Miller was stretching a bit far in that one detail to make her point.

However, that is a very minor quibble with an otherwise pretty perfect book. The slightly ominous foreshadowing at the beginning allows her to go through a long introduction and set up of the characters, and just as you're starting to think it's a pleasant book but nothing really happens - bam! Something very interesting happens with perfect timing. And then the repercussions play out, but it's not quite over even though life has gone on, and you know there's more to the story, and if you're not a dolt like me and read the author interview at the back when you're halfway through the book and spoil the second big surprise yourself, you'll get a second big surprise, with further repercussions, and it's a brilliantly plotted book. The characters are great - there's a lot of them but they're all pretty three dimensional and easy to keep track of. I especially liked the bickering between the sisters even as they are entering adulthood. I get a little frustrated with how most of pop culture insists once you turn 18, all sibling rivalry will just vanish and everyone suddenly will become best friends as that certainly isn't true. The passing of time and the seasons was so visceral, I missed New England a bit.

This book will stay with me for a long time I think. One of the best books I've read this year.

This was an unusual book, but it kind of grows on you and you get more interested as it goes. A woman appears to be having a mid life crisis, as we use to call it, and someone from her past suddenly shows up. She begins to remember that time from her point of view, which was not reality. Interesting read, but not pleased with the ending.

Compelling fiction. Started reading early this morning, finished this afternoon. 4.2

3.5 stars
Miller weaves a good story from past to present focusing on parenthood and the longevity of marriage with its respective ebb and flow. It also delves into the past relationships with a horrific crime and unexpected revealing of the perpetrator. An old one, but a good one that is still relevant and relatable today.

It's one of her early novels, but oh so timeless.

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!

The comfortable life of a middle aged woman is disrupted when she meets up with an old acquaintance. So far, so potentially boring. And there were indeed times when I wanted to give up on this story, when I didn't really care what happened to the characters. But Sue Miller has a gift for describing detail that drew me in completely. She places the trivia of our lives under the microscope and the resulting analysis is just so accurate. A great writer - she just needs a better story.

If there was a half star, I'd give it another half, but giving it 3 seems slightly too generous for a book that left me so annoyed. I loved Joey's past story, when she was living in the house with the others. I never thought I'd find the hippie-esque lifestyle very appealing, but something about those particular characters really drew me in, and I just became totally involved in that section of the book. But there is something charming about a group of 20 somethings trying to find out who they are and what they'll be, and having some fun in the process. But I felt like Joey never actually grew out of that phase, and while it was charming when she was 23, it was completely annoying to me when she was about 52 or however old she was. I felt like shaking her and telling her to grow up at several points! And of course her 3 daughters were becoming just like her. What kind of daughter hears from her mother that her beloved professor's husband is a murderer, and gets angry at her mother for ruining her college life??? So enfuriating. If the book had just been about her 20s, I would have loved it.