Where'd you go, Bernadette? (Maria Semple)

      
  This book ROCKED. It was wonderful. It was hilarious. It was on point. It was glorious. Okay maybe glorious isn't the correct word but it was so good. I swallowed it whole. I wish I took my time to savor it but I'm an addict in most respects and I have control issues; like I'm out of control when I'm in my feeding frenzy.

   So this book.  It's a little different layout, but I have a feeling that the format of the story is something we're going to be seeing a lot more of in the future. It is told through the eyes of Bernadette Fox and her daughter Bee and also through email and letters and transcripts. 

   What we have is a family that was uprooted from LA to Seattle and a woman who we find out was a prize winning architect who designed a house years before called the 20 mile house because it was designed from materials within 20 miles of the house. It was bought and then demolished. Bernadette moves her family to get away from the area and basically hates all of Seattle and the people in it. Her husband Elgin works for Microsoft and we get a fictional account of what that may or may not be like. He ends up... well you'd have to read it. 

   She hates Seattle. She hates the people, her neighbors, the mothers of the school she sends her daughter to. She calls them gnats.
For instance, in a letter to an old colleague Bernadette writes,
"Paul, Greetings from sunny Seattle, where women are "gals," people are "folks," a little bit is a skosh," if you're tired you're "logy," if something is slightly off it's "hinky," you can't sit Indian-Style but you can sit "crisscross appllesauce," when the sun comes out it's never called "sun" but always "sunshine," boyfriend and girlfriends are "partners," nobody swears but someone occasionally might "drop the f-bomb," you're allowed to cough but only into your elbow, and any request, reasonable or unreasonable is met with "no worries."

 She has a brilliant daughter who has promised to get straight A's if she gets a trip to antarctica. She has done so and is now looking for the trip. Bernadette has fears of interacting with people and also crossing Drake Passage and how she gets motion sickness. She is trying to avoid going on the trip. She has a virtual assistant from India who does things for her like get a prescription for the strongest motion sickness meds available. She doesn't know that the assistant isn't who she thinks it is. 

   I've not done justice to what the book is about. It's just a funny romp and I'm so glad I read it.