Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - Where'd You Go, Bernadette

A disappointment. I read this bc I’m interested in stories about mothers who “abandon” their families and all the complexity that ensues. This just doesn’t work very deeply on that level, or any other. Paper-thin characters, other than Bernadette herself, who had complexity but the author basically abandoned all that nuance in the final pages. None of the turning points/flashes of insight from any of the characters made sense to me, particularly the minor characters (Audrey and Soo-Lin). In addition to these problems this book contains a lot of weirdly racist moments that troubled me. I did like the epistolary structure. The book was very well structured and fast-paced. I just wanted the author to allow Bernadette her complexity, in the end

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cawaza's review

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adventurous mysterious fast-paced

Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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aus10england's review against another edition

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funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.25

Absolutely infuriating read. Idk if I have liked characters less. Especially the daughter, oh my goddddd. A lot of things didn’t work for me; the religious themes, the pacing, the open ended ending, it just wasn’t it. Picked this up being a Seattle resident, excited to pick up on the local references, and the author spent most of the book dunking on the city which like ??? okay, don’t set your book here if you hate it. Also I really just didn’t care about these rich people’s problems. I did laugh out loud in a few random parts, a few gasps for some mystery reveals, but overall, I regret picking this up.

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kweis's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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amberjackonski's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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coraliek's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I started Where'd You Go, Bernadette thinking it was going to be an Oscar Wilde-type comedy of errors, and it started that way, but it quickly became so much more.

It kept me guessing until the end, and on the way there, I laughed, I cried, I rooted for and against characters, I loved every revelation, and I could not put the book down.

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meganpbennett's review

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Where'd You Go, Bernadette? is a book that's incredibly hard to rate. It's... a mediocre book about a family you hate from the get go. Bee, the daughter, is not a nice person, and it shows throughout the entire story. Bernadette herself suffers from a horrific experience while trying to build the Twenty Mile House, one which people told her to dust herself off and get back on the horse, all the while ignoring what happened. Then she moved to Seattle, and wasted away in a house that was literally falling apart around her ears. The sort of falling apart where it's a miracle social services hasn't been called.

The novel isn't exactly as described, since a third of the story takes part before the family trip to Antarctica, and it's a little hard to follow, at first, since it's only later revealed that it's Bee creating the story from a dossier she received about the few weeks before Bernadette disappears, causing the perspective to drastically change and the reliability of the narrator to shift from 'unreliable' to 'complete fiction'.

However, that's what makes this book work, and the fact that we lose that shifting, epistolary story exactly when Bernadette disappears, thoroughly weakening the last 50-100 pages, and causing it to lose a star.

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