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A Novel
by Maria Semple
Book Reviewed by:A compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.
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.
Excerpt
Where'd You Go, Bernadette
That night at dinner, I sat through Mom and Dad's "We're-so proud-of-you's and "She's-a-smart-one's until there was a lull.
"You know what it means," I said. "The big thing it means."
Mom and Dad frowned question marks at each other.
"You don't remember?" I said. "You told me when I started Galer Street that if I got perfect grades the whole way through, I could have anything I wanted for a graduation present."
"I do remember," Mom said. "It was to ward off further talk of a pony."
"That's what I wanted when I was little," I said. "But now I want something different. Aren't you curious what it is?"
"I'm not sure," Dad said. "Are we?"
"A family trip to Antarctica!"
I pulled out the brochure I'd been sitting on. It was from an adventure travel company that does cruises to exotic places. I opened it to the Antarctica page and passed it across the table.
"If we go, it has to be over Christmas."
"This Christmas...
What struck me most about this delightful book is that for all its breeziness (and there's plenty of it to move you right along) there's also much that runs deeper beneath the surface...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by Poornima Apte).
Jonathan Evison, author of West of Here
Brilliant, hilarious, endlessly inventive, and compulsively readable, Where'd You Go, Bernadette grabs you by the collar and never lets go. Semple is not only a masterful juggler, and an astute social critic, she is a magician! Jonathan Franzen, author of Freedom
The characters in Where'd You Go, Bernadette may be in real emotional pain, but Semple has the wit and perspective and imagination to make their story hilarious. I tore through this book with heedless pleasure. Kate Atkinson, author of Case Histories and Started Early, Took My Dog
Where'd You Go, Bernadette is fresh and funny and accomplished, but the best thing about it was that I never had any idea what was going to happen next. It was a wild ride... Matthew Kneale, author of When We Were Romans
A delightfully funny book, that constantly catches one by surprise, Where'd You Go, Bernadette combines a shrewdly observed portrait of Seattle - life with, of all things, a mysterious disappearance in Antarctica. A pleasure.Where'd You Go Bernadette has much talk about Antarctica, the coldest, windiest, driest desert continent on earth. Located around the South Pole, Antarctica covers an area of 5.1 million square miles (larger than the US, as well as the continents of Europe or Australia) and has a thick ice cap that has built over millions of years.
Those who can afford the price tag of around $10,000 can go on a cruise to the continent navigating through the Drake Passage. The Drake Passage is a body of water, which connects the southern tip of South America and the Shetland islands of Antarctica. Passage through this body of water is a must but tourists need to pack a lot of Dramamine because it can be an extremely choppy ride – it's not ...
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