Tuesday 15 October 2013

Review | Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

I saw a book haul video on YouTube, and Where’d You Go, Bernadette was one of the books shown. I instantly knew I had to read it. Call me shallow, but the cover was pretty awesome and intriguing!

<blockquote>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 a best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette disappears. It 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, secret correspondence—creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.</blockquote>

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At first I really wasn’t sure if I would like this book. The format it was written in was not something I was familiar with (okay, it’s just a bunch of emails); it felt really disorganized and I had trouble remembering who was who. Mea culpa: I really think it was my fault for not researching more on the book before diving in. I didn’t know who was telling the story, or how all of these emails were related.

But I really wanted to like this book. I had waited for it to be available at the library (!), the ratings on GoodReads were great, there was no way I’d let my ADD brain win this one. And I’m glad I kept on reading, because about 90 pages in, everything sort of fell into place, and the book was excellent!

“One of the main reasons I don't like leaving the house is because I might find myself face to face with a Canadian.”

The writing is funny and witty. The characters are great. The plot is borderline crazy but totally enthralling! I laughed out loud quite a few times and I couldn't put it down. Even though the story is far from being realistic, Bernadette is easy to relate to if you are dealing with any kind of anxiety. All of that, in my book, is recipe for a fantastic novel!

“This is why you must love life: one day you're offering up your social security number to the Russian Mafia; two weeks later you're using the word calve as a verb.”

In the end, even though I had a hard time getting into the story at first, I do not regret picking up this book. I highly recommend it to everyone who likes light contemporary adult fiction. I doubt you would be disappointed!


P.S. The author kept making comments on Canadians. Being Canadian and all, I'm still not sure how I feel about these comments :p

My Rating: ¶¶¶¶
You can buy it HERE.

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