Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Funny. Maria Semple’s novel, Where’d You Go Bernadette, kept me laughing from beginning to end. Bernadette is the average Seattle stay-at-home Mom: she won a McArthur genius award; her husband Elgin is a Microsoft executive leading a two hundred person team on a project involving mind control; and fifteen year old only child, Bee, is a prodigy who convinces her parents to reward her good grades with a Christmas vacation to Antarctica. Bee’s private school, fellow students and their parents are ripe for parody, and Semple mines that thread with great wit. Anyone familiar with that setting will laugh out loud. Bernadette uses a virtual assistant in India to handle much of the logistics of her life, because her social anxiety or agoraphobia leads her to stay close to home. In the tradition of I Love Lucy, the things that can go wrong do, and misunderstandings have significant consequences. Readers looking to read something both intelligent and funny should consider this novel. Rating: Three-star (Recommended) Click here to purchase Where’d You Go Bernadette from amazon.com.