'Like A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD written by Tina Fey' The 2013 Women's Prize shortlisted, NEW YORK TIMES bestseller. Includes Reading Group Notes.
Maria Semple worked as a television writer in Los Angeles for fifteen years, working on hit shows including Ellen, Saturday Night Live, Mad About You and Arrested Development. Her first novel, This One is Mine, was described as 'shocking, memorable, scathing, funny, delightful, hilarious and exquisite'. She lives in Seattle.
It's intelligent but easy to read; eccentric but never twee.
*ELLE UK*
I love the extraordinarily well-drawn characters, the plot, the
tender, lovely relationship, the humour, and the courage to do
daring things
*Nina Stibbe*
Where'd You Go, Bernadette is a wonderful piece of satire that
pinpoints so many of the flaws in our current society. [Semple's]
writing is sharp and witty but also incredibly heart-warming.
*DOG EAR DISCS*
It has had a strong hardback life, it's had some great reviews, now
it's got to really capture the masses. I normally don't like books
written in emails, journals, notes form, and had not realised this
was - just as I hadn't realised Salmon Fishing in the Yemen was!
This has the same feel, same contagious look, same wacky scenario
(well, not quite), same relentless pull. From page one I was
smitten, my dislike for emails forgotten. It is the mother/daughter
relationship which is so brilliant, that and the character of
Bernadette - a prize-winning architect who doesn't realise that
what she needs in life is a new project Clever, witty and hugely
satisfying
*THE BOOKSELLER*
it's a very enjoyable read and the satirical look at modern
life
*THE BOOKBAG*
Laugh-out-loud funny and bitingly satirical
*DAILY EXPRESS*
a breathtakingly original comedy
*ES MAGAZINE*
Maria Semple's witty, engaging novel takes the form of a collage of
documents, emails, transcripts, liveblogs, FBI reports and magazine
articles, all strung together by Bee Branch, a smart and articulate
15-year-old girl, but beneath this surface playfulness is a
fascinating story of one woman's retreat from the
world...refreshing in its honesty and complexity
*THE OBSERVER*
a novel full of honesty and heart
*CNN*
The funniest book I've read in a decade. I laughed to the point of
crying on an airplane. My wife thought I'd lost my mind until she
read it a few days later.
*MARIE CLAIRE*
an invigorating, hilarious, addictive ride of a novel
*Maggie O'Farrell*
Local menace, genius architect, recluse, mother: meet Bernadette
Fox and her Mensa-level teenage daughter Bea as they travel from
silicon valley-Seattle to Antartica and back again. With the kind
of sharp, wish-I-wrote-it dialogue you'd expect from a former
Saturday Night Live scriptwriter, this is like Tina Fey wrote
Welcome to the Goon Squad. I can't say enough about this book, I
loved it.
*HARPERS BAZAAR*
Witty and compelling.
*THE SUN ON SUNDAY*
This fiercely sophisticated novel... whips us around in the
maelstrom that is Bernadette Fox: a woman on the edge.
*SAINSBURY'S MAGAZINE*
full of quirky charm about the mother/daughter bond
*GOOD HOUSEKEEPING*
This novel, shortlisted for the 2013 Women's Prize for Fiction,
uses email correspondence to hilarious and heartbreaking effect.
The disappearance of Bernadette Fox drives the engaging plot, with
the mother/daughter relationship across geographical divides at its
core
*METRO*
When eccentric ex-architect Bernadette goes AWOL, her 15-year-old
daughter, Bee, goes all Sherlock and reads her mum's emails for
some answers - and a secret past. Surprisingly, I found myself
seriously LOLing too. No wonder it's being turned into a movie!
*COMPANY*
It is extremely funny, and Semple has a way of combining a
technologically savvy, ice-cool wit with a stealthy ability to show
gradually a character's warmer side.
*THE SUNDAY TIMES*
This is an extraordinary novel - a fresh, funny, perceptive voice,
and an exhilarating read.
*GOOD BOOK GUIDE*
it's refreshing in its honesty and complexity
*THE OBSERVER*
Semple is a TV comedy writer, and the pleasures here are the
pleasures of the best American TV: plot, wit and heart. It's
refreshing to find a female misunderstood genius at the heart of
the book, and a mother-daughter relationship characterised by
unadulterated mutual affection.
*THE GUARDIAN*
compulsively readable comedy... packed with wit, honesty and
charm
*MUMSNET*
Refreshing, honest and witty, this novel about motherhood zips and
fizzes along, from start to end
*THE INDEPENDENT '50 Best Beach Reads'*
Delivered from multiple perspectives through letters, telephone
calls, magazine articles and emails, it is cleverly plotted and
compulsively readable.
*PROPERTY WEEK*
Semple's exuberant tale is buoyed up by deft plotting and
pitch-perfect characters, whose idiosyncrasies and wrong-headed
interactions are by turns comic, tender and craven. Excellent
stuff.
*FT*
This light relief on the Women's prize shortlist has warmth and
bite in equal measure. Brilliant, troubled Bernadette - a visionary
architect who's started a family but lost the plot - is a fantastic
creation, and Semple's picaresque comedy, told through letters,
emails and even a live blog, skewers the absurdities of American
privilege while drawing a heartfelt portrait of mother-daughter
love
*THE GUARDIAN*
I've been devouring the savagely funny Where'd You Go, Bernadette
by Maria Semple. A TV comedy writer, Semple's wide array of targets
include parenting, over-achievement, schoolgates rivalry,
creativity, Seattle, Canadians, Microsoft, Antarctica and marital
love... Semple is funny, smart and deeply touching
*THE DAILY TELEGRAPH*
Where'd You Go, Bernadette is my favorite novel so far this year.
It's funnier than a season's worth of Modern Family, Curb Your
Enthusiasm and Justified episodes; it's also the most original and
imaginative fiction I've read since The Invention of Hugo
Cabret
*NEW YORK TIMES*
...this book is highly enjoyable.
*FOLLOW THE THREAD*
...wonderfully eccentric
*MUMSNET*
This is an extraordinary novel - a fresh, funny, perceptive voice,
and an exhilarating read.
*GOOD BOOK GUIDE*
This novel, written in the form of emails, notes and phone calls,
is original and funny and you'll learn a lot about Antarctica.
*WOMAN*
An extremely funny and ultimately moving farce about a quirky
American family falling apart over a holiday to Antarctica
*EVENING STANDARD*
A dazzling comic novel about a misunderstood architect. It's an
eccentric and brilliantly accomplished story with a real screenplay
quality to it
*THE OBSERVER*
My happy summer holiday book was the funny, quirky and surprisingly
moving Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple. It's the kind of
book you read and want to buy for friends
*THE GUARDIAN*
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