Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

Back Bay Books

Where'd You Go, Bernadette?
Maria Semple
2012

The Summary
"When fifteen-year-old Bee claims a family trip to Antarctica, a reward for perfect grades, her fiercely intelligent but agoraphobic mother, Bernadette, throws herself into preparations for the trip.  Worn down by years of trying to live the Seattle life she never wanted, Bernadette is on the brink of a meltdown.  As disaster follows disaster, she disappears, leaving her family to pick up the pieces.  Which is exactly what Bee does, weaving together emails, invoices, and school memos to reveal the secret past that Bernadette has been hiding for decades.  Where'd You Go, Bernadette is an ingeniously entertaining novel about a family coming to terms with who they are, and the power of a daughter's love for her imperfect mother."

The Good
Where'd You Go, Bernadette? is an intriguing and wacky tale that the upsets in the life of Bernadette, as her daughter, Bee, attempts to recreate her mother's past and uncover where and why her mother disappeared.  It's a sweet story, showing how close mothers and daughters are.

I liked that Bee carefully developed "sources" for her story, pulling from her private collection of notes and report cards and transcripts and emails, combining a multitude of different files to show how the tale progressed and how Bee ended up going in search of her mother.  It's interesting to see all the clues and breadcrumbs come together, even if the story keeps you guessing.

The Bad
While I can appreciate the thought and detail put into compiling Where'd You Go, Bernadette?, I can't say I was completely hooked by Maria Semple's novel.  I liked the novel, but I didn't love it.  I found it sometimes dragged - okay, it was boring - and I wasn't captured by the story.  I wanted to know how everything sorted out in the end, but I think that was my own overwhelming need for closure rather than a desire to round out the story.

I liked the end, at least, even if I didn't always like how cruel the characters were to one another - or how Bernadette just leaves her daughter, or how Bernadette's husband tries to have her committed, or any number of confusing and frustrating things that I feel like any basic human should know.

Like giving away your social security number online.  Like letting blackberry brambles grow in your house.  Like trying to have your wife committed to a mental institution without actually talking to her.  Like harassing you neighbor to the point that she has a mental breakdown.

You get my point.

The Ugly
Where'd You Go, Bernadette? explores the darker side of exclusion and seclusion.  Bernadette has her own problems, of course, among them denial of aforementioned problems, but it seems that the exclusive attitude of the other parents at Bee's school, the cruelty of other individuals, and the misunderstandings between spouses, exacerbates her difficulties.

Moreover, it's hard to watch a family fracture and (potentially) completely fall apart.