A mother whose story is told by her daughter is a popular plot that has engaged audiences forever. Bernadette is a disappearing mother who may or may not be unstable!
Where’d You Go, Bernadette? is a similar book but the daughter here is trying to find where her mother has disappeared through her emails and messages.
I picked this book for reading only because I saw a post on Instagram where Cate Blanchett was talking about the book. She is starring in the movie as the main lead, Bernadette. I am eagerly waiting for the movie, hope this pandemic doesn’t make me miss the movie.
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Where’d You Go, Bernadette? ticks the boxes for two of my reading challenges.
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It has a cute, furry friend called Ice cream. So a book with a dog in it.
On top of it, it’s a kind of book I loathe to read. It has emails and letters in it that are read and they move the story forward.
I just dislike reading letters in books except maybe one odd that is an urgent dispatch.
Where’d You Go, Bernadette? is an epistolary novel and I have never enjoyed those.
“An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used.” ~ Wikipedia.
I made an exception to this because of Cate, if she is in a movie about the novel, then it is good enough for me to read.
I was surprised with the book, I enjoyed reading it. Even though I have been woefully late for my reading updates and reviews, I will keep following the challenge.
The story unfolds so fast that I was eagerly waiting for the emails to arrive.
Bernadette expresses herself with the emails and I got a peek into her struggle to be a good mother more than the woman she was. The celebrated architect forgotten in the effort to be a mom.
The book started out with her struggle of a mom to avoid confrontation with other parents and turned into race to evade the mental asylum.
Bernadette faces changes in her life, a wake-up call for her. A challenge for her as an award winning architect, wife and mother.
The book has layers that unfold till the last page keeping it a interesting and a trip to Antarctica add to the adventure.
Both husband-wife are together but are drifting apart. Where’d You Go, Bernadette? is a study in how seemingly simple gestures can lead to bigger consequences. Infidelity is lurking behind the shadows but comes from an unlikely source.
I definitely recommend this book for it’s different story line and the house Bernadette lives in and the neighbors 😉
Where’d You Go, Bernadette? is a page-turner, unique storyline and addresses the issues plaguing couples today.
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BLURB : Where’d You Go, Bernadette?
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The 2013 Women’s Prize shortlisted, NEW YORK TIMES bestseller, soon to be a major motion picture starring Cate Blanchett, Kristen Wiig and Billy Crudup.
Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she’s a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she’s a disgrace; to design mavens, she’s a revolutionary architect; and to 15-year-old Bee, she is her best friend and, simply, Mom.
Then Bernadette vanishes. It all began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette’s intensifying allergy to Seattle — and people in general — has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.
To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, and secret correspondence — creating a compulsively readable and surprisingly touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter’s role in an absurd world.
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