Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Title: Where'd You Go, Bernadette
Author: Maria Semple
Publisher: Back Bay Books 2012
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 330
Rating: 5/5 stars
Reading Challenges: TBR Reduction; Mount TBR
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.
This book was a delight. I laughed, I cried, it had everything. I was skeptical reading the first 25 pages, but quickly got hooked with the amazing characters. Bee is such a great character and Bernadette is even better. I loved learning bits and pieces about them through the emails, journal entries, and notes from other character. The story structure really held my attention. And of course, I wanted to find out what happened to Bernadette. A great quick read.