Book Stats: Where'd You Go, Bernadette was written by Maria Semple and published in August 2012.
It's the middle of the week after the Monday Wilderness Adventure. I hope the rest of the week is calm and peaceful. Grabbing a book, I curled up by the window in a warm, fluffy blanket and spent the next hour reading. Here's my opinion on the book.
The story is presented through a series of memos, documents, emails, transcripts, and narration by a 15-year-old Bree Branch. Bree is trying to unravel the mystery of her mom's sudden disappearance. The story becomes a delightful and hilarious comedy, offering sharp and satirical commentary on the absurdities of modern life. Bree's father, Elgin, works for Microsoft while her mom, Bernadette Fox, is depicted as having a secret side job.
The unconventional and eccentric young Bernadette Fox's hilarious view of the world makes it engaging for the reader. The author makes Bernadette seem like a real, unique character by giving her a personality full of zany antics. It makes the reader root for her, even when she's at her most outrageous.
The story reveals ongoing feuds deliberately created by Bernadette's neighbor, Audrey Griffin. Bree discovers that her mother was a very successful architect who won a genius grant for her work, but since the buyer destroyed her work, she lost her creative passion and relocated.
The author brilliantly shows that over time people around you may reveal their evil intentions, even if you are lost in your own world. These people would not stop until you have no option but to hide yourself to protect yourself from the pain. At the same time, the author also shows that the destruction of Bernadette's art left a deep psychological mark on her, and in the absence of help, she didn't recover but suppressed her feelings and emotions behind a mask, which influenced her life majorly.
The story also tells that society will always judge and pressure you, so it's mainly up to you to make yourself strong enough to put yourself first, mend yourself first, and take care of yourself first. The witty writing style, infused with narrative humor, made this story engaging while it also showcased deeper themes of family, identity, and pursuit of happiness. The author achieved the greatest milestone with this and that is blend of humor and genuine emotion, making the story both humorous and deeply touching, causing the reader to laugh at times and cry at others. The characters are well thought out, and there are numerous twists and turns in the story that keep the reader on their toes.
One negative point I encountered in this story is that the story seemed rushed. It gave off a feeling that the author had a brilliant plot in her mind but was unsuccessful in fully expanding on it. She started out great, but the end descended into a cliche, as if the author lost the enthusiasm she started with.
But anyways, this is my opinion, no offense. I am sure her other works might be good, and as an author myself, I can tell that it is not very easy to write a book. Through my personal journey on a writing path, I came to know it is a learning journey that is filled with both positive and negative points to improve oneself and enjoy the writing path.
This is one of the books that came with two other books as a part of recommended books from a friend. Let's see how the other two books compare to this one. Will back with another book review soon. Have you read this book?
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Comments (1)
I must admit I haven't read this book, but I found your review extremely interesting. From your first paragraphs I thought that maybe with its teenage heroine and zany antics it would be a fun book for younger readers, but as I read on I found from your insightful observations that actually it sounds like a story that makes some very worthy arguments for people of any age. Something that I have noted in my many years of writing is that as we grow older, we take an increasing interest in the reality, even banality, of evil as it actually happens, rather than the theatrical and fantasized evil of popular depictions. Certainly when I was a very young writer (younger even than you, I mean!) evil meant supervillains, or alien invaders and the like. These days however, it feels much more important to talk about the evil that others do, which from the sounds of it is exactly what Where'd You Go does too. For there's no question that destroying someone's artwork is a prime act of evil, and does untold harm. I never realised what an embattled life creative people had, until I lived it. Learning to stay strong in the face of destructive envy is something you have to learn, but I've known people just like Bree's mother who've suffered psychological scars from it. This is a very powerful message, and one that's become increasingly relevant since the book's publication in 2012, with today's regrettable hate-culture of cyberbullies and trolls. "It's a good life if you don't weaken," as Graham Greene often wrote. Thank you for starting me thinking this morning with your excellent book review!