Book review! Where'd you go, Bernadette: A Novel

Where'd you go, Bernadette: A Novel by Maria Semple ~~

I'm a sucker for dry, sarcastic, awkward humor. Love it. So when a friend told me about Where'd You Go, Bernadette, and that the author had written for shows including Arrested Development, I immediately put this on my wish list. (I mean, Arrested Development, people.) A fantastically sharp family dramedy, the Where’d You Go centers around Bernadette, a brilliantly minded architect who was thrown into a social butterfly- life that she never wanted consisting of PTAs and fundraising parties in Seattle.

Bernadette's 15-year-old daughter Bee chooses a family cruise to Antarctica as a reward for her perpetual good grades. With a husband who’s a big shot in the Seattle tech industry, Bernadette throws herself into planning and preparation for the trip, despite her intense fear of both social situations and enclosed spaces. After a string of debacles that include issues with the crumbling structure that the family calls home (an old, dilapidated girls’ school), repeated issues with intense moms on the PTA, and her virtual personal assistant housed in a foreign country, Bernadette disappears without a word.

Bee tells the story of the events leading up to and through the disappearance through her perspective, but also through a considerable amount of detective work, digging through old emails, memos, and transcripts in an attempt to try to piece together what was going on with her mother. She gathers communications from her potential boarding school, her mother’s old friends and colleagues, the administration at her school, and her virtual personal assistant, Manjula Kapoor from Delhi Virtual Assistants International. Desperate to find her mother, Bee Combs through these correspondences to piece together any possibility of locating her mom. The result is a masterfully painted picture of a family desperate to come to terms with who they are, how they are meant to be, and a family's dedication and love for one another.

For me, this was a dry but comedic take on a Stepford-like existence, a la the recent movie Bad Moms. I feel like I fall right into that sometimes because yes, I would take store-bought donut holes to a bake sale. Sorry. It’s true. And I feel Bernadette’s pressure, like oh-so-many moms to be both reasonable and perfect at the same time. We all hope we’re handling it well, but sometimes it all piles up and you just want to check out. Bernadette’s story, while extreme, is a fantastic look at the intimate workings of a family pulled in various directions by daily realities, outside expectations, and personal goals and dreams. I enjoyed it so much that I’ve added other Maria Semple books to my list. Christmas isn’t that far away (don’t shoot me for that), so hopefully, I’ll have more for you from her in a few months!!

I'd love to hear your thoughts if you've read Where'd You Go, Bernadette: A Novel. And I've got more coming, so sign up for my mailing list here. It would be great to hear from you!