Book Review: Where Did You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple

July 12, 2023

I have a hard time with “comedies” because very often they are tragedies that people found funny. Bridesmaids? Not funny. Just a sad story about a women who doesn’t feel seen by her best friend. Were there funny parts? Absolutely! But it is not a funny movie. Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine? Not funny. A terribly sad story of a woman who has dealt with a lot of abuse and is severely stunted because of it. Did she say funny things? Yes! But this was because she had no social skills. If you looked at it from the point of view of her not having any social skills because she had been severely stunted by her abuse it is not as funny. I think this book falls into that category a little, but it was funnier than the others, I will not lie.

This story follows a high school girl named Bee and her search for her mother who, for most of the book, we are made to believe had a psychotic break and ran away. Bee’s mother, Bernadette, was a promising young architect that ran into a roadblock and then had creative block for years and years. She is eccentric and fun, but is in the middle of a crisis of self for the entirety of the book. Bee had a lot of health issues as baby into childhood and Berndette allowed that to take over her whole life, and in turn her whole identity. She resents the place that they live, the people they are surrounded with and the life she is living. We learn all of this through the lenses of Bee reading emails, hand written notes, public records and notices and making comments on them. Toward the end of the book we realize that Bee is writing the book that we are reading during her time at a boarding school that she gets kicked out of.

There were funny bits, but there was a lot of self discovery of Bernadette and of Bee. It is a strange thing when you figure out your parents are people, too, and you watch Bee have a hard time with it as she leans into young adulthood with or without her mother. She learns more about her dad, Elgin, and the women in the town that Bernadette calls “gnats”, Audrey and So-Lin, and the way relationships can change over time. How someone who you thought was your enemy, can become an ally. How someone you love and have known your whole life can become the villain because you don’t understand them or their choices. How a friend can become a stranger because of a choice that you make. There are many hard lessons that Bee learns through her missing mother.

This book is fast paced and dramatic. It is funny and fun, but there is also the underlying fact that Bernadette has lost herself and is trying desperately to figure herself out again while being a wife and a mother. I really liked this book, and would suggest it, but I would not necessarily classify it as a comedy.