This book started out so, so good, then got kind of crappy for a bit, then redeemed itself (mostly) at the end. It’s been reviewed quite a bit here on CBR, so I’m not sure what I can add to the discussion, but here goes.
“You’re bored. And I’m going to let you in on a little secret about life. You think it’s boring now? Well, it only gets more boring. The sooner you learn it’s ON YOU to make life interesting, the better off you’ll be.”
Bernadette Fox may be the least boring character I’ve ever read about. An ex-architect who has moved herself from L.A. to Seattle with her genius Microsoft husband to raise her precocious daughter Bee in a falling down ex-boarding school for “troubled” (read: pregnant) girls which sits atop a hill covered in blackberries, Bernadette has a lot going on. She’s also cripplingly agoraphobic, and hates just about everything about Seattle (the traffic, the gutter punks, the hippies, etc). She manages to keep most of her true, anxious self from her family. But when she goes missing just before the Antarctica trip which she has promised Bee, everyone learns all about Bernadette.
The lead up to Bernadette’s disappearance is the best. The book is mostly a collection of emails, faxes and other documents by, to or pertaining to Bernadette. I actually listened to the audiobook, and the narrator did a great job of imitating voices, which was important since much of the book is written in first person. Once she actually disappeared, it went downhill for a bit, but I’ll let you discover how yourself. Overall, Where’d You Go, Bernadette was a good story and an important lesson about first impressions and judging people before you really get to know them. There’s a lot of redemption for various characters in the latter half, making the whole journey totally worth it.
