Review: Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

Bee Fox, about to graduate 8th grade at the elite Galer street private school with a run of perfect grades every year, cashes in her parents' long-ago offer for a graduation present. Bee picks a family trip to Antarctica. Her mother Bernadette, the former genius architect of the 20 mile house and now a seemingly crazy recluse, and her father Elgin, a genius at Microsoft working on a super-secret artificial intelligence project, wind up agreeing to the trip only because the other doesn't say no. Bernadette has become allergic to Seattle; the too-nice drivers, the five-way intersections, the gnats (the overly friendly moms who do so much to keep the private school running), the weather. The trip to Antarctica might mean actual human interaction for the first time in many years for  Bernadette, but instead she hires a personal assistant from India to do all her busy work.  But when Bernadette catches wind that her husband is about to have her admitted to a mental health facility before the trip, Bernadette mysteriously disappears in the middle of a somewhat botched intervention.
Author Maria Semple's novel is narrated by Bee but told primiarily in an epistilary format through emails and letters that Bee laters accumulates. It is a funny, funny story. Despite the seemingly heavy subject of mental health and the many plot lines that delve into dysfunction, the story reads like an episode of Arrested Development, a TV show on which Maria Semple was a writer. The satire of Seattle and the software culture is wonderful, and the mystery of what happened to Bernadette plays out perfectly with all the funny plot lines of the book. This is a perfectly executed novel that kept me guessing and laughing, and while there might not be a sequel, I do look forward to what Semple might do next. This was a very fun and enjoyable book that I'm recommending to all sorts of people, adults and high school students alike.