Where’d You Go, Bernadette is a rip-roaring, hilarious good time wrapped in a unique package. Told through emails, letters, faxes (!), FBI reports and more, this book unfolds in a truly original way.
Follow the story of Bernadette, a secluded and anxiety-riddled mom of near-genius Bee. Bee’s getting ready to leave for Chaote, a premier boarding school, in the Fall. In the meantime, she and Bernadette must contend with the waspish “Gnat” moms of Bee’s private school. They gossip. They lie. They accuse Bernadette of running over a woman’s foot in the school pickup line with her fancy SUV. And when Bee asks for a trip to Antarctica for the whole family for Christmas, even her overscheduled Microsoftie Dad must comply. Bernadette throws herself into preparations, asking her remote personal assistant from India to handle every single detail.
But a fiasco triggers a huge life change for Bernadette – against her will – and she runs. As in, completely disappears. Can Bee unlock the mysteries of her mother’s past, and the truth of her present?
Bee is a whip-smart narrator, pulling together pages of documents and emails to pull readers on her mother’s journey toward escape. I found myself literally laughing out loud over and again as Bernadette describes bothersome Mom’s from school, Seattle traffic and her hatred for all things Canadian. Then, partway through, I got all the feels. This book is deep, taking readers on an emotional, and yes, comical, journey of what is means to not fit in, to feel like a failure, to love someone with all of your heart and yet still not be able to make it work.
I HIGHLY recommend this book. One of the best I’ve read in years.