# Where'd You Go, Bernadette

By Maria Semple

Profile: https://hahafiction.com/books/where-d-you-go-bernadette-df00093f/

Architect Bernadette Fox disappears before a promised family trip to Antarctica. Her daughter Bee assembles emails, invoices and other records to work out where she has gone, following the traces of a mother whose private life looks different from one document to the next.

## What makes it funny?

A promise intended to fend off requests for a pony leaves Bee’s parents facing an Antarctic cruise instead. Each waits for the other to refuse; Bee accepts their silence as permission. Readers also single out Bee and Bernadette’s different voices as a source of laughter.

### The comedy at work

The documents give people space to describe their grievances in their own voices. Bernadette’s private messages make everyday social obligations sound like elaborate ordeals, while the collection lets readers see more than any one account supplies.

### Try this if…

The document-by-document search may suit readers who enjoy social satire and a close mother-daughter relationship amid family trouble. Several book-group readers who stalled in print say the audiobook narration helped them enjoy the story.

### Good to know

Readers split over Bernadette: some find her funny, others irritating enough to abandon the book. The letters-and-notes format draws some in immediately and takes longer for others. Social anxiety and family distress underlie the jokes.

## What to expect

- Genre: Contemporary & literary
- On the shelf: Family comedy
- Kind of humor: Banter · Dark comedy · Dry wit · Satire
- Format: Novel
- Published: 2012

## A few distinguishing details

- Bee searches for her missing mother through the records she left behind.

## Questions readers ask

### Is it sad or funny?

Readers describe it as both, with sad situations told through humor. A minority of the readers in the discussion say they did not find it especially funny.

## Sources & further reading

- Reader discussion: [Reader discussion](https://facebook.com/groups/211610599638106/permalink/1923292818469867)
- Reading sample: [Opening excerpt](https://www.bookbrowse.com/excerpts/index.cfm/book_number/2816/page_number/1/whered-you-go-bernadette)
- Review: [Publishers Weekly review](https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780316204279)
- Publisher: [Publisher](https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/maria-semple/whered-you-go-bernadette/9780297867319)