Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

5 reviews

shadowmuse's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I stayed up until a little before 1 when I had to be up at 4:45 to finish this book. The last section flies. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

mels_reading_log's review against another edition

Go to review page

funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Bernadette doesn’t belong in Seattle, but her husband is a big shot at Microsoft, so there she is. So different from all the other moms at her kid’s (Bee) school. In a wild series of events in which everyone acts without actually discussing anything with each other, Bernadette goes missing. Now it’s up to Bee to think like her mom to try to find her even though everyone else has given up hope. This book was hilarious and I loved it!
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

vk124's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional funny mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Recommended to me by my sister, and then again by the librarian, I finally read this book. I laughed so hard in some moments and felt thoroughly misanthropic in others. I have an unresolved question even after completing the book, but it ended on an upbeat note.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

meganpbennett's review against another edition

Go to review page

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. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

waytoomanybooks's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I went into the book not knowing what to expect, which made it all the more fun to read! There were a lot of interesting twists that I can honestly say that I didn't see coming. I think all of the characters were fascinating messes of flaws and virtues, which made all the more invested in their stories. It kept me guessing, and it made me keep turning the pages!

I should explain why I gave it a 3 out of 5 rating (in no particular order): I think the ending was rushed and a tad sloppy. And there are a few loose ends I would've liked seen tied up
(like Soo-Lin's baby!?)
. There was also a completely unnecessary Christian bent to it that got shoved into the narrative in the last quarter of the book. And also some casual racism and hatred against the poor and the homeless that jarred me out of the narrative on more than one occasion. Also, the whole
Russian mafia angle was never brought up after the intervention. Surely they couldnt just go about unaffected by the fact that their identities/SSNs, addresses, and account numbers, etc. were stolen?
.

It was an enjoyable read, but it definitely needed another round of edits.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings