Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple - 4*

[Doughgirl5562]

Keywords: 21st-century, Antarctica, creativity, epistolary, genius, humor, mental-illness, Microsoft, quirky, satire, Seattle, technology

Life has kind of ganged up on Bernadette -- and she can just no longer deal. She even uses a virtual assistant in India to run all of her errands. When her daughter announces that she wants a family trip to Antarctica as a reward for getting straight As, she initially goes along with the plan --- until she disappears.

This novel is the story of how she got to that point - and how her teenage daughter is determined to find her. It's also very much a satire of 21st century life. It is an epistolary novel, but the author uses email, texts, faxes, a few letters and even a security guard's incident report to tell most of the story. It's quirky and funny - but with a serious undertone.

There were a few things that happened near the end of the novel that seemed a little to "random" to me (as Bernadette's daughter would put it), but otherwise I loved this novel.