Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

Where'd You Go, Bernadette

by Maria Semple

A misanthropic matriarch leaves her eccentric family in crisis when she mysteriously disappears in this "whip-smart and divinely funny" novel that inspired the movie starring Cate Blanchett (New York Times).

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 her best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette vanishes. It all 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, and secret correspondence -- creating a compulsively readable and surprisingly touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.

Reviewed by Bianca on

3 of 5 stars

Share
2019 Popsugar Reading Challenge
01. A book becoming a movie in 2019

The truth is complicated. There’s no way one person can ever know everything about another person.


— Funny and pretty enjoyable. Just not something I would really love.

Last modified on

Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 5 January, 2019: Finished reading
  • 5 January, 2019: Reviewed