Where'd You Go, Bernadette

This was light, funny, and quick.

Great mystery!

Completely unexpected and a completely engrossing read. I especially loved all of the little nods to Seattle, although the Queen Anne life that Bee and Bernadette know is completely foreign to me. I also loved the redemption of Audrey Griffin, who was otherwise completely unlikable and a great villain.

DNF. Read the synopsis of the rest of the story and I'm glad I abandoned it. It annoyed me far more than it entertained me.

I just adore the odd, dysfunctional Bernadette Fox.

From her people-aversion to the bizarre truths she has formed her world around, I find her to be both indestructible + muddled, brilliant + thick, exasperating + lovable.

I felt sections of this book could've been axed or shaken to keep the story seamless. The constant character switchback allows Semple a five-dimensional tale in chronological order. However, it snags, not allowing you to sit with a character before you're whisked away to a “This Just In” segment of another character's development.

Semple excels in laying out the subtitles of a character's thought stream, assessments so relatable and offensive, only an author courageous and witty would lay out a persona so raw, so refreshing.

Sure was Seattle-y! I was more interested in the second half, after the characters started to develop more depth.

Retry: I got farther, but still lost interest. So added another star but I think that's all I have in me. Me and this book are not friends.

Original review: I'm not going to finish this book. I can't stand books about rich, whiny people. It's satirical, but just annoying to me, especially all of the prep school moms. I'll usually at least try to read half of a book before I decide that I'm really annoyed and give up... but this one is just really getting to me.

I just hate it when people behave so differently because of money, and I can't get over it. This book is full of snobs.

The only good thing I can say is that the writing style is GREAT. I may try another Maria Semple book since it's only the character's attitudes that I don't like.

Entertaining read compiled in an interesting way - through emails, letters, an article, and even a fax or two providing different perspectives, with remaining parts of the book told through the perspective of Bee, Bernadette's daughter. It's definitely quirky and not what I expected, although I don't know what I was expecting. I enjoyed it for the most part. Not a book I can't wait to recommend to others but not one I'd encourage others to pass on either. Would probably make a great beach read.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette is one of the best books I've read all year!

The story is a quirky one, and for me, it was the perfect amount of quirky. I read this on the train when I was returning from vacation, and it was wonderfully entertaining for a stretch of hours that could otherwise be considered boring!

The story is, in a nutshell, about family. Bernadette is the mom of the family, and she's definitely not a normal, run-of-the-mill kind of mom. She's a hilariously whacky used-to-be architect living in Seattle with her husband, Elgin (who's a bigwig at Microsoft), and daughter Bee. The story unfolds through a series of correspondences between the main and secondary characters, plus Bee's interjections and narrations at points.

Read the rest of my review here: http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2016/07/review-whered-go-bernadette-maria-semple/

A private school rebranding to attract richer parents, a husband who works at a major tech company, constant dissatisfaction with one's city that quickly escalates to rage upon leaving the house - yeah, I identified with this book.

Cell phones are the bane of modern filmmaking. It seems like at least half (if not more) of all major conflicts from classic movies could be solved with a simple phone call (or text message) between two people who have the ability to communicate almost literally wherever they are. Modern writers have taken to have the first character be tragically misunderstood, but get so frustrated they decide not to clarify things because they're SO ANGRY or the second character is SO HURT ... only for it finally be resolved a few months/weeks/one crisis later.

Or you could have the character go to Antarctica. I'm just saying, it's an option. Apparently.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette is one young teenager's attempt to piece together where her missing mother might be. For out-and-out Seattleites (complete with a Microsoft Dad), they certainly have more adventures than you might expect.

The plot mostly moves forward through a series of miscues and miscommunications - some accidental, some not. I'm loathe to give away any of the plot points, really, because trying to muddle through what the hell happened is well more than half the fun.

I really liked the book, but I have the literary equivalent of part of a popcorn kernel stuck in my teeth that, no matter how hard I run my tongue against it, I can't quite seem to get loose.

As mentioned, the novel propels itself along with tufts and strings that hint at what happened, but only become fully fleshed out the farther you get into it: A murder mystery without a murderer. But if your whole book rests on the plot, all the dominoes you set up in the front half have to pay off with a satisfying topple in the end. In this case we get not a bang, but yet more misdirection and a plot hole between the dominoes you could fly a 747 or navigate an Antarctic research vessel through.

That's what knocked me down to a mild “you should probably read” versus a must-recommend. Regardless, though, definitely one to keep in mind.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and was not prepared for the ending (I was reading it on iBooks and foolishly thought that when it said I had 15 more pages that I actually had 15 more pages). Semple has done a wonderful job creating quirky characters that I either loved right off the bat (Bee and Bernadette) or grew to love (Elgie). I felt as angry as Bee was at Elgie with his infidelity, his leaps to conclusions, and his complete inability to listen to or understand his wife. I cheered when Bee found her mom, happy that she wasn't at the bottom of the sea. I liked Bernadette's letter, explaining all that had happened but I wanted to see her come home, I wanted to see how Elgie and Bernadette worked out their issues, how the “gnat” and baby fit into their lives and see the growth in all of them.

Had such high expectations -that weren't quite met. Kept waiting for fun, excitement or more human characters, only found psychos. The one I wanted to know better was the daughter, but the narrative kept alternating between the obnoxious neighbor, the eccentric dad, the uninteresting admin - who, despite the fact she was uninteresting all the way, became relevant to the story at some point -, the oblivious police officers and health professionals... argh! bottom line, there was no one I actually felt sympathetic or liked or found even believable in the whole book, except - a little - Bee.

Easy read, be careful about assumptions; being yourself and being accepted for who you really are.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a spunky and unexpected story. I loved the format of the book - the letters and documents really add a great dimension to the book. The format reminded me of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which is one of my favorite books.

Oh my GOSH I loved this book SO MUCH. For me it's a 10 hour roundtrip drive to my parents' house, so whenever I go home I try to do an audiobook. But it's such a flat, boring drive that I need something really good to hold my attention or else I get bored and switch to music. This was GREAT, the kind of audiobook that had me anxiously putting the next disc in as soon as I could. Really funny narration–I especially loved her voice for Bee, the teenage narrator.

When I saw that Maria Semple had written for Arrested Development I thought, that makes total sense. This reminded me of Arrested Development in the best way–larger than life characters who are also very human, insane plot twists that some how all come back together at the end. And it's SO funny and well-observed.

This book would have been an enjoyable 3 stars for me, but Kathleen Wilhoite's narration really elevated it. I was audibly laughing to myself on the metro (like a crazy person)

I love this book. At first I hated the book because of the way it was written but after getting further into the book I absolutely loved it! I want to read Maria's other book asap!

Now, I can see how a lot of readers could find this novel inconceivable. All of these things that happen seem to be out of the realm of normal possibility. For starters, what 7th grader wants to go to Antarctica? But really, if you wade through the craziness there are shining nuggets of truth, of real life.

Bernadette is truly suffering. Reading the emails from Ollie-O (which is a ridiculous name) and the back and forths about what kinds of parents they want at the school it's no wonder Bernadette wants nothing to do with them. And she tells her husband this, but he seems to just brush it off. Mostly, I think, because it has nothing to do with his work. She has this horrific neighbor who hates her because she doesn't know her. The catty emails are enough to drive me insane.

The character that I just couldn't like was Elgin. He spent their entire marriage ignoring Bernadette. He worked ridiculous hours and immersed himself in his own genius. When he finally begins to pay a bit of attention it's the end of the world. At a time when he is supposed to be helping Bernadette he can talk of nothing more than how she is ruining his life. How crazy she is. He never once gives her a chance to speak or explain. The only person who stood up for her was Bee.

I think that what this book really tried to say was how people have the ability to greatly harm or greatly help another person. That sometimes we just have to stop being assholes and try to be human beings.

This quick take originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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Do you get seasick? People who don't get seasick have no idea what it's like. It's not just nausea. It's nausea plus losing the will to live.

You probably think, U.S./Canada, they're interchangeable because they're both filled with English-speaking, morbidly obese white people. Well, Manjula, you couldn't be more mistaken.

Americans are pushy obnoxious, neurotic, crass – anything and everything – the full catastrophe as our friend Zorba might say. Canadians are one of that. . . To Canadians, everyone is equal. Joni Mitchell is interchangeable with a secretary at open-mic night. Frank Gehry is no greater than a hack pumping out McMansions on AutoCAD, John Candy is no funnier than Uncle Lou when he gets a couple of beers in him. No wonder the only Canadians anyone's ever heard of are the ones who have gotten the hell out. Anyone with talent who stayed would be flattened under an avalanche of equality.

Really, who wants to admit to her daughter that she was once considered the most promising architect in the country, but now devotes her celebrated genius to maligning the driver in front of her for having Idaho plates?”

At first I really wasn't sure if I would like this book. The format it was written in was not something I was familiar with (okay, it's just a bunch of emails); it felt really disorganized and I had trouble remembering who was who. Mea culpa: I really think it was my fault for not researching more on the book before diving in. I didn't know who was telling the story, or how all of these emails were related.

But I really wanted to like this book. I had waited for it to be available at the library (!), the ratings on GoodReads were great, there was no way I'd let my ADD brain win this one. And I'm glad I kept on reading, because about 90 pages in, everything sort of fell into place, and the book was excellent!

Read more over @ The Hungry Bookster

I thought this story was hilarious. It reminded me of an Arrested Development episode - and as it turns out, the author used to write for that series.

Short Review: This is a flawed satire about the top 1% in Seattle. It does not work as satire and the characters are too unlikeable (and unreal) for it to work as a straight story. The writing is decent and I think the author (known for her work writing for Arrested Development and Mad About You) has real talent. But in this case the book just didn't work.

Click through for my full review http://bookwi.se/bernadette/

Hilarious. And very sweet. (But not too sweet.) Highly recommended!

I had a hard time rating this one. It started off amusing, then the catiness b/w the moms got a little too much for me, but then all of the clues revealing what happened to Bernadette really picks up. I was let down by the way the story ended – it felt rushed. However, I'm tacking on an extra star for the simple fact that as annoying as I found some of the characters to be, I must admit they were very realistic. Unfortunately, I knew some people that behaved just like some of the characters in this book. Though this being true is not a good thing, the author deserves the extra star for describing such believable (and at times, pathetic)characters. These types of people aren't isolated to just Seattle! You don't have to be familiar with the city to enjoy this read.