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Where'd You Go, Bernadette
Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, 2013
A NEW YORK TIMES bestseller
Shortlisted for the 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction
Now a major motion picture, directed by Richard Linklater and starring Cate Blanchett, Kristen Wiig and Billy Crudup
‘Like A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD written by Tina Fey’ RED MAGAZINE
Bernadette Fox is notorious.
To Elgie Branch, a Microsoft wunderkind, she’s his hilarious, volatile, talented, troubled wife.
To fellow mothers at the school gate, she’s a menace.
To design experts, she’s a revolutionary architect.
And to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, quite simply, mum.
Then Bernadette disappears. And Bee must take a trip to the end of the earth to find her.
WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE is a compulsively readable, irresistibly written, deeply touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter’s place in the world.
Shortlisted for the 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction
Now a major motion picture, directed by Richard Linklater and starring Cate Blanchett, Kristen Wiig and Billy Crudup
‘Like A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD written by Tina Fey’ RED MAGAZINE
Bernadette Fox is notorious.
To Elgie Branch, a Microsoft wunderkind, she’s his hilarious, volatile, talented, troubled wife.
To fellow mothers at the school gate, she’s a menace.
To design experts, she’s a revolutionary architect.
And to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, quite simply, mum.
Then Bernadette disappears. And Bee must take a trip to the end of the earth to find her.
WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE is a compulsively readable, irresistibly written, deeply touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter’s place in the world.
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Reviews
...this book is highly enjoyable.
I've been devouring the savagely funny Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple. A TV comedy writer, Semple's wide array of targets include parenting, over-achievement, schoolgates rivalry, creativity, Seattle, Canadians, Microsoft, Antarctica and marital love... Semple is funny, smart and deeply touching
Local menace, genius architect, recluse, mother: meet Bernadette Fox and her Mensa-level teenage daughter Bea as they travel from silicon valley-Seattle to Antartica and back again. With the kind of sharp, wish-I-wrote-it dialogue you'd expect from a former Saturday Night Live scriptwriter, this is like Tina Fey wrote Welcome to the Goon Squad. I can't say enough about this book, I loved it.
The funniest book I've read in a decade. I laughed to the point of crying on an airplane. My wife thought I'd lost my mind until she read it a few days later
It is extremely funny, and Semple has a way of combining a technologically savvy, ice-cool wit with a stealthy ability to show gradually a character's warmer side.
A fresh, flamboyantly witty new voice
Refreshing, honest and witty, this novel about motherhood zips and fizzes along, from start to end
Semple is a TV comedy writer, and the pleasures here are the pleasures of the best American TV: plot, wit and heart. It's refreshing to find a female misunderstood genius at the heart of the book, and a mother-daughter relationship characterised by unadulterated mutual affection.
[A] deeply touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's place in the world. A seriously compulsive read
it's a very enjoyable read and the satirical look at modern life
When eccentric ex-architect Bernadette goes AWOL, her 15-year-old daughter, Bee, goes all Sherlock and reads her mum's emails for some answers - and a secret past. Surprisingly, I found myself seriously LOLing too. No wonder it's being turned into a movie!
This novel, shortlisted for the 2013 Women's Prize for Fiction, uses email correspondence to hilarious and heartbreaking effect. The disappearance of Bernadette Fox drives the engaging plot, with the mother/daughter relationship across geographical divides at its core
If you loved the humour of A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD, pack this sharp, witty novel...A fabulously kooky tale
Maria Semple's witty, engaging novel takes the form of a collage of documents, emails, transcripts, liveblogs, FBI reports and magazine articles, all strung together by Bee Branch, a smart and articulate 15-year-old girl, but beneath this surface playfulness is a fascinating story of one woman's retreat from the world...refreshing in its honesty and complexity
In what is at times a sad and painful tale about family dysfunction, black comedy waylays sentimentality. Semple's second novel is a witty, thrilling adventure about creation, destruction, the Antarctic - and the maternal bond
This light relief on the Women's prize shortlist has warmth and bite in equal measure. Brilliant, troubled Bernadette - a visionary architect who's started a family but lost the plot - is a fantastic creation, and Semple's picaresque comedy, told through letters, emails and even a live blog, skewers the absurdities of American privilege while drawing a heartfelt portrait of mother-daughter love
Laugh-out-loud funny and bitingly satirical
a breathtakingly original comedy
Where'd You Go, Bernadette is a wonderful piece of satire that pinpoints so many of the flaws in our current society. [Semple's] writing is sharp and witty but also incredibly heart-warming.
The funniest book I've read in a decade. I laughed to the point of crying on an airplane. My wife thought I'd lost my mind until she read it a few days later.
it's refreshing in its honesty and complexity
This novel, written in the form of emails, notes and phone calls, is original and funny and you'll learn a lot about Antarctica.
an invigorating, hilarious, addictive ride of a novel
Delivered from multiple perspectives through letters, telephone calls, magazine articles and emails, it is cleverly plotted and compulsively readable.
Semple's exuberant tale is buoyed up by deft plotting and pitch-perfect characters, whose idiosyncrasies and wrong-headed interactions are by turns comic, tender and craven. Excellent stuff.
A delightfully funny book, that constantly catches one by surprise, Where'd You Go, Bernadette combines a shrewdly observed portrait of Seattle life with, of all things, a mysterious disappearance in Antarctica. A pleasure
full of quirky charm about the mother/daughter bond
...wonderfully eccentric
Maria Semple dissects the gory complexities of familial dysfunction with a deft and tender hand. Where'd You Go, Bernadette is a triumph of social observation and black comedy by a skilful chronicler of moneyed malaise
My happy summer holiday book was the funny, quirky and surprisingly moving Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple. It's the kind of book you read and want to buy for friends
This fiercely sophisticated novel... whips us around in the maelstrom that is Bernadette Fox: a woman on the edge.
a novel full of honesty and heart
It has had a strong hardback life, it's had some great reviews, now it's got to really capture the masses. I normally don't like books written in emails, journals, notes form, and had not realised this was - just as I hadn't realised Salmon Fishing in the Yemen was! This has the same feel, same contagious look, same wacky scenario (well, not quite), same relentless pull. From page one I was smitten, my dislike for emails forgotten. It is the mother/daughter relationship which is so brilliant, that and the character of Bernadette - a prize-winning architect who doesn't realise that what she needs in life is a new project Clever, witty and hugely satisfying
Witty and compelling.
This is an extraordinary novel - a fresh, funny, perceptive voice, and an exhilarating read.
Fresh and funny and accomplished, but the best thing about it was that I never had any idea what was going to happen next. It was a wild ride
It's intelligent but easy to read; eccentric but never twee.
Where'd You Go, Bernadette is my favorite novel so far this year. It's funnier than a season's worth of Modern Family, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Justified episodes; it's also the most original and imaginative fiction I've read since The Invention of Hugo Cabret
The characters in Bernadette may be in real emotional pain, but Semple has the wit and perspective and imagination to make their story hilarious. I tore through this book with heedless pleasure
A clever, witty page-turner with sparkling dialogue, some hilarious episodes and a heart that gradually melts
An extremely funny and ultimately moving farce about a quirky American family falling apart over a holiday to Antarctica
A dazzling comic novel about a misunderstood architect. It's an eccentric and brilliantly accomplished story with a real screenplay quality to it
A novel full of honesty and heart
Extremely funny, often laugh-out-loud so... with her penchant for unexpected twists and smart, jet propelled dialogue, Semple has a way of combining a technologically savvy, ice-cool wit with a stealthy ability to show gradually a character's warmer side
compulsively readable comedy... packed with wit, honesty and charm
I love the extraordinarily well-drawn characters, the plot, the tender, lovely relationship, the humour, and the courage to do daring things
This is an extraordinary novel - a fresh, funny, perceptive voice, and an exhilarating read.