I really needed this book this week. It was funny, and light and interesting. Where'd You Go, Bernadette is a collection of letters and e-mails pieced together to tell the story of Bernadette Fox, a wife and mother in Seattle Washington who has disappeared. But before Bernadette Fox was those things in Seattle, she was a famous architect, recipient of a McArthur Genius Award, and a free wheeling spirit whose creative side was channeled toward a vision only she could imagine. But, 15 years later, she's living in Seattle, wife to Elgin Branch, a VP at MicroSoft working on artificial intelligence technology, and mother to Bee, a super-smart 8th grader who decides as her gift for straight A's - she's going to ask her parents for a trip to Antarctica. Bernadette, who has become increasingly reclusive over the years, responds to the request by outsourcing a position as a personal assistance to an e-mail address in India.Meanwhile, down the slope from their home (actually an old school for girls), lives Audrey Griffin, a Seattle socialite who has never met a problem that wasn't caused by someone else. Audrey's best friend, Sue Lynn works at MicroSoft and reports back to Audrey all the things that Elgin is up to while his wife spends her day ruining Audrey's life. As smart as they are, Elgin and Bernadette don't communicate very well, so much so that when Sue Lynn informs Elgin about some of his wife's more odd behavior, he becomes concerned enough to stage and intervention - an intervention that goes horribly wrong and ends up with Bernadette running away, and an angry Bee left to pick up the pieces and try to discover what happened to her mother. I know reading the above synopsis may not actually seem like this book is as funny as it was, but it was actually very funny and delightful. It's a shame I had to rush through it, but I've recently discovered that my library will let you borrow Audiobooks for FREE! (can you imagine) so I may have overcommitted to my borrowing shelf!
4/5 Stars.
My
mom and sister received a scolding text message for not warning me I
would cry in the last chapters of this wonderful and heartbreaking debut novel. So as I write this with swollen and red eyes at Midway airport I
have mostly great things to say about this book.
The book
takes an honest look at the role of women at the turn of the twentieth
century. It is with a sense of relief and gratitude that the sacrifices
and demands made by that generation such as the protagonist Mamah
Borthwick made to ensure I and women everywhere would be evaluated and
valued on our own contributions to society.
The author did a
wonderful job of creating honest characters. Just as I was growing tired
of one of the characters lamenting the situations they had made for
themselves the character would also realize they were acting a little
put upon.
They only detracting comment I can really say about
this novel is that certain passages ran on and on and on. This may be
part of a new author developing their craft but I found some pages
largely unnecessary as Horan had done such a good job developing the
characters already.
I had absolutely no background in anything involving Frank Lloyd Wright aside from knowing where his homes are located and what the architecture generally looked like. This was such a pleasant and wonderful surprise. I can't recommend enough.
4/5 Stars.
