From the Bookshelf of Baltimore County Public Library Summer Reading BCPL SRC …

Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Maria Semple

Start date: June 1, 2015

Finish date: June 12, 2015

Discussion: 2015 Summer Reading

Why we're reading this: Not what I normally read. Quirky. Very enjoyable. Not as much mystery to this as it was made out to be, b…more
[close] Not what I normally read. Quirky. Very enjoyable. Not as much mystery to this as it was made out to be, but that was kind of the point, too. I recommend!

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2015 Summer Reading

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What Members Thought

Feb 07, 2013 Christie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: adult, chick-lit, cfya-3, a-z-2013

I will admit I was a little confused when I started the book. I thought the first like chapter was an exert. Then I figured it out, that Bee was narrating then story from emails, notes, faxes, police reports and other things from her mother, father and people around them. She just wanted to figure out where her mother went and why she was gone.

I have to tell you at the beginning of the book I could not stand Audrey and Soo-Lin. They seemed to be typical busy-body women who need to know all and ...more

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Jul 17, 2012 Jennifer rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Sometimes I think about people who don't like to read and I feel so sorry for them because they have no idea of the joy that finding a book like this, a book I literally could not put down and read in a day, brings to your life. Really! I thought this one started out funny,snarky - I loved Bernadette and thought that the world she describes could be anywhere, not just Seattle - but as the book goes on it gets touching, more thoughtful, more clever, even sad at times. Anyone who suffers from a bi Sometimes I think about people who don't like to read and I feel so sorry for them because they have no idea of the joy that finding a book like this, a book I literally could not put down and read in a day, brings to your life. Really! I thought this one started out funny,snarky - I loved Bernadette and thought that the world she describes could be anywhere, not just Seattle - but as the book goes on it gets touching, more thoughtful, more clever, even sad at times. Anyone who suffers from a bit of crazy or has a few obsessive traits will see themselves here and wish they could be a little bit crazy in such a cool way. And finally, a very generous book - just like real life - sometimes people really do change. Read this one!!!
(An aside - there is a great line on page 320 about researches and being good at writing grants ... snarky and perfect ...)

*I had a million questions. I asked Becky to have dinner with me. She was a drab type, with a ten-gallon ass, unctuous towards the waiters in some "see how well I treat the help" show of superiority. (I think it's a midwestern thing.)*

*My heart started racing, not the bad kind of heart racing, like, I'm going to die. But the good kind of heart racing, like, Hello, can I help you with something? If not, pleaes step aside because I'm about to kick the shit out of life.*

*(I'm telling you, there are all kinds down here. At lunch today, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist explained "the quilted universe". I'm not talking about Galer Street pickup, with the parents standing arond in their North Face. It's a quantum physics concept where everything that can happen, is happening, in an infinite number of parallel universes. Shit, I can't explain it now. But I'm telling you, for a fleeting moment at lunch, I grasped it. Like everything else in my life - I got it, I lost it!)*

*(OK, we need to double swear to never tease Dad about the emails from the admin. You may have a hard time seeing it now, but trust me, it meant nothing. No doubt poor Dad is already dying of mortification. If he hasn't ditched her by the time I return, have no fear, I will swat her away myself.)* ...more

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Jun 04, 2014 Laura Novobilsky rated it really liked it

I really enjoyed this book. I laughed out loud at some of the email exchanges and liked trying to figure out the mystery surrounding Bernadette's disappearance. Sometimes I think when you read a book at the right time, you enjoy it even more. This week I really needed a mindless, but entertaining read, and this book fit the bill. ...more

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Mar 06, 2013 Joy rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, book-club, 2013-reads

This is a quirky book about entitled people and their outrageous behavior. It's a satire of life in Seattle- sending their kids to private school and living in their cookie cutter Craftsman houses. It did have amusing moments, but I didn't find it laugh out loud hilarious. Often I found it incredibly sad. The epistolary format adds interest to the story of what happens to Bernadette. And I was surprised I actually cared about these people, even in their utter ridiculousness; it has some endearin ...more

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