Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Published August 14, 2012

About the Book:

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle—and people in general—has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence—creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.

My Thoughts:

I think I've loved every epistolary style novel I've ever read.  I love how it provides first person narration from all or most of the characters, but with it done in a way that is different from just changing the narrator for the various chapters.  The different types of letters, emails, documents, etc. each add their own touch to the story.  Here, we also have Bee's narration with the various letters, emails, documents, etc. mixed in.  I adored Bee.  She's smart, mature without being too grown up, has great taste in music, adores her mother (love reading about a great mother-daughter relationship), and is just a great teenage girl voice.  Bernadette, Bee's mom, is a character I can see some being really irritated by maybe, but I loved her.  She kept me cracking up for much of the book, and I've probably shared similar thoughts about people I've encountered in my own life.  I'm not the most patient person, and I tend towards being anti-social but know how to play nice (Bernadette, on the other hand, not so good at the playing nice!).  The jabs at Seattle were amusing, since I've heard some of them from friends who live or have lived there.  The satire of the upper-middle class of Seattle can apply to the same in any locale really, so even without knowledge of Seattle, I think anyone could get it.  It's such a fun read and one I recommend highly!  This book was hot back in 2012, and for whatever reason, I didn't read it then.  If you missed reading it too, please do read it.