January's Book Club: Where'd You Go, Bernadette

This month I went to a new book club that was just formed.  It is a combination of some of the people from the day book club I used to be in a long time ago, and the evening book club, which only met a few times, and then stopped for some reason.  We met back in November to discuss what we might want to read throughout the year.  One of the members suggested a book I had already listened to the audio version of, called "Where'd You Go, Bernadette" by Maria Semple. This time I decided to read it digitally.

Our book group met around dinnertime, so we have decided to bring food.  The food suggested was to "bring our favorite Antarctic dish."  I brought blue and clear JELLO jigglers (recipe found on Pinterest) that looked like ice!  There was also iceberg salads, cold fruit soup, hot tomato soup, gummy penguins, along with many other great things.

"Where'd You Go, Bernadette" is focused mainly around five people, so absorbed in their own worlds, that they cannot really see what is going on around them.  There is Audrey, the nosy neighbor, who is a gossip and a trouble-maker.  Audrey's friend, Soo-Lin, who likes to complain much about her personal problems and thinks more of herself than anybody else.  There is Elgin/Elgie Branch (pronounced El-jin, or L.G. - as the audio book pronounced it), who is a Microsoft big-wig who is completely absorbed in his work.  Elgin's wife, Bernadette, an eccentric, artsy, fashionable woman, is at the center of everybody's drama. Finally, there is Bee, the overly-enthusiastic teenage daughter, who wants to go to Antarctica, after receiving the best grades she could get from her current school.

The book was a big hit in my book club.  The book's main setting is in Seattle, and the Greater Seattle area.  All of us live in the Greater Seattle area, so it made it more personal for us, than maybe someone who lives outside that.  I have heard reviews of the book both ways.  Some people really love the book, some don't like it at all.  I can see why on both sides. 

In my group, there were a couple of women who moved from California, and there are a couple of others who husbands work for Microsoft.  When asked if they could relate to the book, they definitely felt like they could.

Being originally outside the Greater Seattle area myself, I could relate to some of the issues as well.  Some reviews I read/watched thought the characters were "too over-the-top."  Part of the reason why I may have not loved this book as much some, may be because I felt some of the characters were almost too real.  I could relate to them too much, having known people in my lifetime who have acted much like the characters in the book do. 

Audrey drove me crazy.  She was the character I loved to hate.  The book would not have been entertaining without her.  One person in my book group said that she was her favorite character, and she had the best arc.  Which is true.  Of all the characters in the book, Audrey has the best arc.

Bee was my favorite character.  The book is told from her side, through a series of letters she reads throughout the book.  I liked the style, reading the compilation of letters, and faxes, and whatnot.  I felt the format really makes the reader feel a part of the story.  In some ways, the reader is Bee, looking through all the information to figure it all out.  As a group we agreed that it could not work from anyone else's viewpoint.

Some reviews felt the title was misleading.  They thought Bernadette did not leave till late in the book.  This isn't entirely true.  However, it doesn't necessarily mean "gone" as in physically gone, either.  I think some readers might have missed that part.

Some reviews thought a couple of characters sounded the same.  I think it helped that I heard the audio version first.  It helped me keep track of which character was who, and I felt the narrator did a great job.

Something I didn't understand, when I was reading it digitally, is some words in a couple of the letters being in bold for no apparent reason.  Did anyone else notice this?  Did I miss something?

I could go on about the other characters, but I really don't want to spoil anything.  All I know is that we had a ton of people at this book club, and everyone there seemed to really enjoy it.