Sue Miller's While I Was Gone

Hi Friends! I'm terribly behind but wanted to do the review from the book club at my house - so sorry!

So this book club on Thursday, November 7, me, Devon, Monica and Stacy got together! We didn't take a picture of us... sorry Shana!!.... but I have a picture of our meal - pita pizzas!

The Spread....

Zoom on the meatsa pizza (back) and pesto chicken (front)

zoom on the veggie pizza

hehe love my pizza plates - they make me laugh; can also see the Meditteranean pizza well!

Book club was a blasty – great conversation, yummy wine, fun catch-up time as well as book chat. It’s so good to have great friends, especially ones you have so much in common with! The book we discussed was Sue Miller’s While I Was Gone.I gave it a 2.5 out of 5. It just wasn’t what I expected. It was very deep. It focused on a woman married to a minister who lived a happy life with her three children. Then you find that she has a past, and it comes back in a very unexpected way. It’s less of a story and more of a series of events. It DOES make you think and it definitely lent itself to conversation because most of us disagreed with the main character and the choices she made. I gave it a 2.5 instead of a 5 because I wished more had happened - more literal and less open to interpretation. I felt like the author wanted me to do all of the work; and while I was all about gleaning ideas/thoughts from the book, I needed more to hold my interest. It definitely got our club thinking about people from the past – is it good when they pop back up? Or a reminder of what could have been? Which led to an interesting conversation about Facebook and social media. So again, not the best book for me, but a definite conversation starter!

We also chose the next books:

The Next Thing on My List: December book (Stacy’s pick/her house)
The Lovely Bones: January book (Mon’s pick/her house)

I'm again SO SORRY for the much delayed meeting recap. :)