I have this quirk - I guess it isn't really a quirk because I know other people like this - where I have to read a book before the movie comes out. I heard through the grapevine that this book may be made into a movie. To be fair, it's been a book that I've wanted to read for a while now and the movie prospects moved it to the top of my list. Maria Semple did however create a winner here.
The main character in this novel is the title character - Bernadette. She's a Type-A, successful, MacArthur grant winning architect who is married to a successful computer programmer and who suddenly decides she's not going to work anymore (first world problems I tell you!). The story is told from the perspective of Bernadette's daughter. 20 years prior to the events in the novel, Bernadette was living in California working as an architect and was at the cutting edge of "green" design. Her main project was a popular "localvore" project meaning that Bernadette got all of her materials from the area that she lived in. After much conflict with her neighbor, Bernadette gives up and moves to Seattle with her husband, a TED talk genius who loves living in Seattle. Not so much for Bernadette who essentially becomes a hermit, except to emerge to engage in an internet scam and with confict with the local parents, whom she calls gnats.
This book was both screwball and decidedly sweet, in a satirical fashion. I really think that at the bottom of this novel is the relationship between a mother and her daughter, the daughter being an only child who obviously idolizes her mother. I loved it. Semple's style is also really interesting. This is not a straight narrative in the traditional sense but is told through a mix of emails, journal entries, letters, police reports and first person narrative as well as school reports. The material is compiled and stitched together by Bee, Bernadette's daughter, who is valiantly trying to figure out what caused her mother to disappear. I loved it. Just loved it. Go get this book right now!
The main character in this novel is the title character - Bernadette. She's a Type-A, successful, MacArthur grant winning architect who is married to a successful computer programmer and who suddenly decides she's not going to work anymore (first world problems I tell you!). The story is told from the perspective of Bernadette's daughter. 20 years prior to the events in the novel, Bernadette was living in California working as an architect and was at the cutting edge of "green" design. Her main project was a popular "localvore" project meaning that Bernadette got all of her materials from the area that she lived in. After much conflict with her neighbor, Bernadette gives up and moves to Seattle with her husband, a TED talk genius who loves living in Seattle. Not so much for Bernadette who essentially becomes a hermit, except to emerge to engage in an internet scam and with confict with the local parents, whom she calls gnats.
This book was both screwball and decidedly sweet, in a satirical fashion. I really think that at the bottom of this novel is the relationship between a mother and her daughter, the daughter being an only child who obviously idolizes her mother. I loved it. Semple's style is also really interesting. This is not a straight narrative in the traditional sense but is told through a mix of emails, journal entries, letters, police reports and first person narrative as well as school reports. The material is compiled and stitched together by Bee, Bernadette's daughter, who is valiantly trying to figure out what caused her mother to disappear. I loved it. Just loved it. Go get this book right now!
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