Where'd You Go Bernadette? by Maria Semple

★★★★¼

GENRE: Fiction
SUBJECT: architecture, dysfunctional family
Setting: Seattle, WA; Antarctica
CHARACTERS: Bernadette Fox, Elgin Branch, Bee Branch, ManjuLa , Audrey Griffen, Soo-Lin Lee-Segal
DATE READ: April 25 - April 30
NO. OF PAGES: 479
Challenges: 75, Category, TIOLI , LILIES
SOURCE: AUDIO stockpile

PLOT:....................................................................4.50
CHARACTERIZATION:.......................................5.00
TOPICS: ...............................................................4.50
STYLE:..................................................................4.00
ORIGINALITY:.......................................................5.00
ADDICTIVENESS:..............................................4.00
OWNERSHIP:......................................................4.00
Threshold Quality.................................................3.00
Average..............................................................................................4.38

Do not judge a book by it's cover - because I know that if this was in a pile of books and I could choose only one, the cover would have sent me searching further in the pile. But I had an advantage - my sister, the librarian.  Yes, she told me I'd love it, she told me I'd laugh, but I was still skeptical. I will never again doubt  my sister when she says that a book is worthy of my perusal.  I probably would have just passed this book by if she hadn't raved about it.

The story is told through a e-mails, letters, newspaper articles from various points of view and this could be chaotic but no it works.  The characters are quirky - Bernadette is a reclusive former prize-winning architect who has abandoned her profession to be a stay-at-home mom who neither cleans nor cooks but has a virtual assistant from Asia order takeout, her husband Elgin, a Microsoft big shot, who bicycles to work and ignores his wife and child, and Bee (Balakrishna) the perfect student, who was born with a heart problem that has turned Bernadette into what she is.  Then add over-zealous PTA/neighbor Moms and administrative assistants with a crush on the boss, how could Bernadette's world not go berserk.

A intervention gone wrong results in Bernadette's disappearance and an aborted vacation to Antarctica becomes the rabbit hole that Bernadette falls through.

This satirical novel is so amusing that you will laugh out loud, just don't judge it by its cover.