Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

Where'd You Go, Bernadette
By Maria Semple (335 pages)
Published by Little, Brown and Company
Bookish rating: 4

My, what a darling little Seattle-centric book this was. Told from various perspectives, often including HILARIOUS emails, Semple skewers the Microsoft folk while also rather tenderly portraying mother-daughter relationships, loss of talent, the aimlessness that can follow motherhood, and even father-daughter relationships. And lots of other stuff, now that I think about it.

And it's an effing hoot. I laughed. Often.

The premise is a tad mish-mashed, but essentially Bernadette, the madre, disappears after the private school, mean-girls-all-grown-up mother hens push her over the mental edge. Semple's writing is subtly witty and just plain fun. After I finished the book, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was rather charmed by the novel. Recommended.