Where’d You Go Bernadette By Maria Semple

[amazon_link id=”178022124X” target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]’Where’d You Go Bernadette’ is the second book by Maria Semple.

To Elgie Branch, a Microsoft wunderkind, she’s his talented, volatile, troubled wife. To fellow mothers at the school gate, she’s a menace. To design experts she’s a legendary architect. But to 15 year old Bee, she is quite simply Mum. Then Bernadette disappears. And Bee’s search for her mother reveals an extraordinary woman trying to find her place in an absurd world.

There are many things that I loved about this book, straight away there is the cover, which in my opinion I think is fabulous, wonderfully eye catching with a bright and vibrant illustration of Bernadette in her trademark scarf and sunglasses, this book most definitely stands out on the bookshelves.

The main story is cleverly written, told through a series of email and fax transcripts between Bee, Bernadette and other people that they have come in contact with over the short period of time and the challenges that they face. Filled with witty characters and most definitely an addictive and alluring lead that had me laughing and sighing in quick succession this story had me enthralled pretty much from the very start. As a bit of a geek, I found the Microsoft scenes terribly interesting, particularly the creation of Samantha 2, which was Elgie’s project at Microsoft. I thought this was quite a fascinating sub story and one that I found so convincing and genuine that I ended up googling it and was delighted to see that I was not alone in thinking that this project actually existed. There were also moments of sadness in the story, as Bernadette struggles to adapt to the world where people around her found her eccentricities and personality overbearing and strange and then there were tender moments of exchange between Bee and Bernadette as they both discovered new things about each other.

A delightfully quirky, honest and fun story, ‘Where’d You Go Bernadette’ is most definately a heart warming story of a mother and daughters bond, the strong urge to belong and importantly finding your way in life. I loved this book!

You can buy [amazon_link id=”178022124X” target=”_blank” ]Where’d You Go, Bernadette from Amazon [/amazon_link] and is available to buy from good bookshops.