Where'd You Go Bernadette?

By: Maria Semple

SPOILER ALERT!!

If you plan to read this book, hold off reading the following review.

I love the way this book is narrated. I have ADD brain. I describe it as having 16 little brains in my head. Anyways, about the way this book is narrated, it hops around from letters, to emails, to at least 5 other people’s point of view. With it being narrated this way, it brings a nice lightness and wonder to the story.

Here we go with the story line: Bee is a great kid. She has been an outstanding student at school, so her parents told her that she can have whatever she wants, if she gets great marks at school. I don’t know about you, but I’m a little jealous. Well, she decides she wants to go on a family vacation to Antarctica. I know… weird… very weird place! It’s literally freezing there, not my vacation pick. Bernadette gets extremely excited about this, gets a personal assistant and starts planning the whole thing. She gives these people their passport info, their credit card info, and frankly any other personal information she can give out. The personal assistant has even bought and mailed to her all of the gear they will need for the trip. While all this is happening, the reader does a flash back about Bernadette and her husband Elgin’s earlier life. Bernadette was an extremely successful architect and won lots of money as well as some prestigious awards. Sadly, a long strand of miscarriages changes Bernadette forever; she stops being an architect. Thankfully, she finally gets her sweet daughter, Bee, but Bee is born with a heart condition. For years Bernadette makes it her life purpose to be there for Bee. Along with the miscarriages and Bee’s health their living conditions are ( how to say this nicely) less than desirable. Ok, that’s a lie. They are HORRIBLE. I don’t know how this family has lived like this for so long? Number one, how did they let themselves live like this? Two, how did no one call the authorities about it? Anyways, I started to spiral a little, because Bernadette gave all this information to their so called “personal assistant”and Bernadette’s family are all of a sudden being looked at by the FBI. You will never guess that It isn’t a “personal assistant” ….its a Russian money scammer. Well, that is all Elgin can take of his wife’s kooky-ness. He calls a mental hospital to have her committed. As you can guess, that doesn’t go over well. At the same time, as all of this is happening, Bernadette is dealing with all of the drama and attacks that the other moms at Bee’s school are giving her. Audrey makes her pull out their blackberry bushes (Audrey lives in the lot down the hill from them). A huge rain hits and causes a mudslide from Bernadette’s yard into Audrey’s yard and it even goes into her home and destroys it. WOW. Yes, there is more! Can you believe it? Finally, they do an intervention on Bernadette at the same time the police and FBI are investigating. Bernadette looses it and disappears. The whole rest of the book is about Elgin and Bee on the trip to Antartica. Yes, they went without her. Rude! Also, the story goes over how Bernadette was about to give Bee all of the emails and letters and all the other information that Bee needed to find out why Bernadette left in the first place. Well, here is the next spoiler: We finally find Bernadette in Antartica. It’s a crazy ride. I didn’t even cover half of it. So, if you have read this review and are intrigued….. you need to read the whole book.

Alrighty, let’s talk characters. There are so many characters to love and to hate in this story. Bee, where to even start with her? She is such a sweet girl. The teenage daughter we all want. She loves her parents and gets along with them so well, until her relationship with her father changes as Bee learns her dad is responsible for triggering Bernadette’s freak out and disappearance. Elgin, Bee’s father, is a Microsoft genius. He is distant from his family’s lives. He ends up getting an assistant named Soo-Lin. What you need to know about her is that honestly, we don’t like her or her best friend Audrey. Soo-Lin somehow becomes Elgin’s pregnant lover while Bernadette is missing. Audrey is team “anti Bernadette”. Not ok!! She treats her extremely badly. Later on in the book, we learn that Audrey wasn’t so bad. She also is a mom that really needs to stop wearing her “mom goggles” with her son! Last but not least, Bernadette herself! Wow! Where do I start? She is hilarious; yet, she has so many problems. She suffers from horrible, if not crippling, anxiety. She is a hoarder and she doesn’t sleep. She is judged extremely hard by all of the other mothers in their community.

This is such a good book. It keeps you on edge wondering what is going to happen. It makes you think about it when you aren’t reading it. Guessing what Bernadette is going to do next, and constantly questioning where’d you go if you were Bernadette. It is such an easy read. I can tell you right now you won’t want to put it down. Plus, after you read, it you can go see the movie.

As promised, I would tell you what I am reading right now. I am reading “The Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah. So stay tuned for a review on it soon.

I hope you enjoyed

Until the next mess,

Dana