Review: Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

Where'd You Go Bernadette is a unique, humorous and fun story. It is told from the perspective of Bernadette's teen-aged daughter Bea who is considered mature and smart beyond her years. The story is told in epistolary fashion through letters and email switching to Bernadette's perspective and it also included her father Elgie and a few other interesting characters. The story is set in Seattle where Bernadette is an antisocial mom married to Elgie who is a workaholic at Microsoft. The book pokes a bit of fun at Seattle, Microsoft, rich entitled kids and their families and private schools. I appreciated the fresh style and humor of the book.  I found myself laughing at many of the  outlandish situations Bernadette gets herself into that are for the most part, unrealistic, although very funny. 

I listened to the book as an audio book (loaned from my local library) and found it worked well in this format. I listened to it in my car on my commute to and from work and looked forward to driving so I could listen to the book. The narrator Kathleen Wilhoite made the audio book work perfectly for me. Kathleen was a character on Gilmore Girls, a favorite show of mine. For those who are fans of the show, Kathleen played Luke's sister Liz. She has the perfect unique voice to fit the characters. 

This was an enjoyable, fun and engaging book. I'd highly recommend this novel in either audio or print editions.