You had me at "Antarctica". Five stars!
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| this picture is actually on Elephant Island, but I love it |
Okay, okay, a bit more of a post is called for I guess. This book is great! I don't know why I resisted reading it for so long when so many people with good taste said it was good! Will I learn a lesson from this? Probably not!
The book is part epistolary, part told by Bernadette's daughter Bee, and the structure works beautifully. There are heaps of different voices, and pretty much everyone is an unreliable narrator, but not in the way where you close the book and say "damn you, Agatha Christie." There were a couple moments that hit me "right in the feels" as the tumblr youths say, except mine were....Antarctica feels.
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| Boromir here represents my feelings about Antarctica. |
BASIC PLOT: Bernadette and her husband and daughter live in Seattle and Bernadette has mental health issues. Then she disappears, and Bee is trying to figure out where she went. I could say more about it but really, this book was the exact book I needed to read when I read it and it's difficult to articulate the whys and wherefores of that, you know? Where'd You Go, Bernadette was the ideal book for me at this moment in my life, for reasons.
Anyways, it's a lovely book and I highly recommend it. I suppose I also recommend listening to people when they say "this is such a good book" a million times. Alternately, I can recommend that if you want to get me to read a book just mention offhand that Antarctica is involved and I'll be like "omgosh, wut. TBR."
This book added to my ambition to visit Seattle AND THEN I DID. So good job, book. Also it has the only book trailer I've ever liked in my natural born life.
ReplyDeleteSeattle is great! The book talked about Seattle and I was like "I've BEEN THERE, wow"
DeleteHave you seen the book trailer for The Rook???? It is the only one I like (but now I am going to go look up this one's book trailer so there will probably be two I like very soon): https://youtu.be/ByWvG3KfOmo
I ALSO resisted reading this for a long time and then I did and realized "OMG THIS IS THE BEST THING EVEEEEEER" Who are these people and why aren't they doing a better job convincing people to read this?
ReplyDeleteI listened to it as an audiobook from the library and when I was done I said to myself, "I may need to buy a hard copy of this so I can reread it" which is UNPRECEDENTED.
DeleteHonestly I think this book wasn't marketed to its best advantage. Which makes me wonder what other books I'm missing out on.
YAY. I loved this book too. It's fun and funny and great in every way. I should reread it in fact!
ReplyDeleteDoes this mean you want to go to Antarctica? Is that a thing you want to do, you beautiful madwoman?
Okay, "beautiful madwoman" is my new favourite compliment.
DeleteI would LOVE to go to Antarctica. Wintering over at the South Pole is my DREAM.