Current Read: “Where’d You Go Bernadette”

When I attended orientation back in June, I received a copy of Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple. Every year at USC, the freshman are given a book that is supposed to be read by the time school starts. It gives the freshman something to talk about and it keeps us reading.

I personally loved the book! This is by far the best school required read I’ve ever read. As and epistolary novel it’s super easy to pick up and put down if you get interrupted. In case you don’t know what an epistolary novel is, it’s a novel written using a series of documents. I found this summary on goodreads:

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 a best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette disappears. It 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, secret correspondence—creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter’s role in an absurd world.

I really love the message of the novel. I interpreted it to be don’t lose who you are and always do what makes you happy. I could be way off the mark on the actual message of the book, but I think everyone can interpret a book differently. I don’t want to go into too much detail in case you want to read this! Let’s just put it this way, I laughed a lot throughout this book.

What are your current reads? Have you read this book? I would love to hear from you!

-Abigail T.