Monday, July 7, 2014

Review: Where'd You Go, Bernadette?! by Maria Semple

Dear Lit Loves,

So for some odd reason a huge number of people that I've come across lately were all hysterically jumping up and down about the book entitled Where'd You Go, Bernadette?!   And maybe if you like your books on the satirical side, this might be the book for you.  Honestly though, people know I live and breathe memoir so I HAVE NO IDEA why they recommended this book to me.  Maybe I just wanted to see what all the fuss is about?  To clarify, I never read memoir by famous people.  I like the memoirs by real people with real lives and real problems thank you very much.

Basically this novel follows a family where the dad is a scientific genius and the mom is a one-time brilliant architect who won a MacArthur award.  After something terrible happens in relation to the mom and the dad has Microsoft buy his company, the couple move to Seattle.  They buy a home that used to be a home for abandoned or runaway girls which is in complete disrepair.  They have a daughter that they send to a private academy.  And the mom basically checks out of her life.  No, seriously, she doesn't repair the home; she rarely goes outside the house; she appears to hate people or maybe just the people in Seattle (I couldn't totally tell).  The dad appears to be working 24/7 at Microsoft and loving the Seattle tree-hugging environment.  Eventually, the dad discovers just how wayward and lost his wife has become and let me tell you it's because she's an artist and she has stopped creating.  That's what this whole book is about:  Do not check out of life if you are in an artistic field!  The dad tries to have the mom committed.  Meanwhile, the daughter Bee appears to be a well-adjusted thriving middle schooler even though her parents have little if any contact with the school she attends or the community.  The mom, Bernadette, goes missing.  The remainder of the book involves the dad and daughter trying to piece together what in the world happened to Bernadette.  And let me tell you, there were so many points of view in this book I almost couldn't keep up with them.  The story is told through emails, notes, and transcriptions of phone calls.  Which brings me to the one part that really bugged me:  I wrote a manuscript in diary form and had a literary agent just shred it due to the "lack" of structured chapters.  Well, I can tell you, this book is not organized into chapters; it's barely put together in parts. 

At times I felt sorry for Bernadette because of what happened to her before she left California.   At the same time, she brought A LOT of the insane stuff that happens to her on herself.  I mean, who the heckfire is so lackadaisical that they never cook, only order takeout, and then instead of washing the dishes, just throws them in nearby bureau drawers?!  And how do you buy a ginormous home, leave it in complete disrepair, borderline condemnable?  And you call yourself an architect by trade?!  And honestly, I thought Bernadette should have stayed at the port where her daughter eventually finds her especially if she was just going to barely exist in life and not grab life by the horns and ride that bull until it screams Uncle baby! 

But you know me, I'm never at a loss for an opinion.  I do memoir so naturally this book didn't grip me and make me think about the larger issues in life so I'm not going to be gung-ho about recommending this book; however, if you like and thrive on reading about wealthy folks who definitely need to grow up and get a real life, then this book might be for you.  I'm off to read true
memoir in the form of Poser:  My Life in 23 Yoga Poses and Now I See You.  Will be back shortly lit lovies!

Grace

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