{"id":25318,"date":"2015-01-06T23:55:35","date_gmt":"2015-01-07T03:55:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=25318"},"modified":"2015-01-06T23:55:35","modified_gmt":"2015-01-07T03:55:35","slug":"review-of-whered-you-go-bernadette-by-maria-semple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=25318","title":{"rendered":"Review of Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"whered_you_go_bernadette_large\"<\/a>Where\u2019d You Go Bernadette?<\/em><\/p>\n

by Maria Semple
\nread by Kathleen Wilhoite<\/p>\n

Hachette Audio, 2012. 8.5 hours on 9 compact discs.
\nStarred Review
\n2014 Sonderbooks Stand-out<\/a>, #5 Fiction<\/p>\n

Bee is trying to find her mother. Bernadette Fox has disappeared. Bee assembles various documents leading up to the disappearance to try to figure out what happened, and where her mother went.<\/p>\n

Bernadette has been uptight for a long time, and has not been enjoying Seattle. What drove her over the edge? Was it the dispute with her neighbor over blackberry bushes? Was it stress about traveling to Antarctica to please their daughter and having to face the treacherous Drake Passage? Was the parents\u2019 group at her daughter\u2019s private school too much for her? Was it her husband\u2019s long hours at Microsoft? Was it simply from trying to avoid interaction with people by using an internet assistant? Did she get wind of her husband\u2019s plans to stage an intervention? Or is it nothing more than hatred of Idaho drivers?<\/p>\n

The incidents happening around Bernadette were quirky enough to be humorous \u2013 at first. Toward the latter half, I began to think they were all simply too awful and couldn\u2019t be overcome. A lot of little things had snowballed into big things, and let\u2019s just say I was fully sympathetic with her for disappearing. <\/p>\n

However, did she mean to disappear? Was she even still alive? And can Bee find her?<\/p>\n

By the end of this book, I liked it tremendously. There were some fairly messy loose ends, but just enough to make the whole thing realistic. Bottom line, this book tells the story of a creative family who loves one another in extraordinary circumstances. And they found a realistic and hopeful, but extraordinary, way to get back from the edge of the cliff. The reader finishes with a belief that, one thing or another, they\u2019re going to make it.<\/p>\n

And getting there is quite a ride.<\/p>\n

HachetteAudio.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Fiction\/whered_you_go_bernadette.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

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