Bernadette is Severely Depressed and Needs Help--Not Funny!

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

" Funiesunnyt Novel..." "Divinely Funny".. ..." family dramedy".. " you'll laugh your pants off".. Just a few of the blurbs on the back and front of this book. I never even chuckled. A woman is so depressed she lives in a house with holes in the floor, roots growing into the rooms, some of which are shut off they are so decrepit, the stench is unbelieveabe. Her child, who was born with a congenitive heart defect has been ridiculed and mocked by her peers since she has been able to venture into the world after years of surgery. He husband is so busy working for Microsoft that he ignores his surroundings and hardly notices what is going on in his home. Eventually, he starts to notice what appear to be problems with his reclusive and negative wife and decides the best thing he can do for her is commit her to an asylum for psychotherapy and take their teenage daughter on the trip to Antarctica they've promised her will be a family trip so that Bernadette has time to heal. Hilarious.
What this is is a study of a modern day family who reside in the upper classes of our society. The wives stay home and compete with each other to host the most parties, get their kids into the " best schools" and gossip about anyone who makes a choice to avoid their company. The men, those that are even mentioned in the book, basically go to work as high paid executives who drink and hang out at the golf course or country club and pay very little attention to the operating of their homes--they provide the money, isn't that enough? And the kids, well, depends --some like Bee are amazingly level-headed with interests and activities that don't rely on the parents very much or like Kyle, steal their mothers' drugs and use them and what they can get elsewhere to create entertainment of a different sort. Hilarious!
But, all that aside, Bee is interesting and this is her book. She very much loves her parents and they do her, as well. The fact they are off the rails is at first not clear to her and she blithely asks for a trip to Antarctica since she has been studying it and is curious. Both parents are supportive of her and so they agree to the trip. What ensues is a journey of discovery and eventually of healing for this family. That part of the book, while not at all funny, is at least what might keep a reader going, despite the sadness. The hope that things will turn around and finally Bee will have a somewhat normal family in this sea of entitlement and ennui.

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