Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Bernadette Fox has vanished.

It all begins when her precocious, whip-smart daughter Bee claims a family trip to Antarctica as a reward for perfect grades at the prestigious Galer Street school. With no choice but to face her fierce aversion to human interaction, Bernadette, a fearfully intelligent shut-in who has become so agoraphobic that a virtual Indian assistant now executes her daily errands, throws herself into preparations for the trip.

But the timing, it turns out, could not have been worse. Worn down by years of dealing with Seattle's polite drivers, overzealous moms, and proximity to Idaho (don't even get her started on the Canadians), Bernadette is already on the brink of a meltdown. Throw in a not-so-civil neighborly feud over her rampant blackberry bushes, which escalates when Bernadette (allegedly) hits her with her car, and a school fundraiser that goes disastrously awry at her hands, and it's all just too much. Bernadette vanishes, leaving her concerned, hopeless Microsoft-Guru husband, her daughter-and a hoard of angry parents and questioning police officers-to pick up the pieces.

Which is exactly what Bee decides to do, and in spades. Desperate to find her mother, Bee compiles hard evidence, weaving an elaborate web of emails, invoices, school memos, and private correspondence that reveals a secret past Bernadette has been hiding for decades.

Where'd You Go Bernadette is an ingenious and unabashedly entertaining novel about a family coming to terms with who they are. It is also a riotous satire of privilege and an unsentimental but powerful story of a daughter's overwhelming love for her mother.