Where'd you Go Bernadette    By: Maria Semple

If the whole book is about finding Bernadette I might as well write about why she left, right? There are so many logical reasons that only if you read the book you would understand. Bernadette has a crazy life and in these five reasons, her adventures are summed up in a few sentences.
5 reasons Bernadette left:

1. She couldn't handle the pressures of her "psychological issues"
Elgin, Bernadette's husband, decided to figure out what was going wrong with her because she was acting so distant and bizarre. Elgin decided to get the detectives, FBI and Dr. Kurtz involved in order to send Bernadette to a treatment facility to help her. Bernadette doesn't know her husband has been planning an intervention for a few weeks and when he finally decides to put the plan in action. Bernadette is startled by this quick interaction "Do what here? I don't like this. I'm leaving," (219 Semple). Bernadette is asked many questions and under a lot of pressure so she decides to take a bathroom break and escape the house.

2. She can't handle living in Seattle with the gnats
Bernadette has always hated Seattle ever since she moved there because all the mother's, whom she calls gnats, in Galer Street School are obnoxious and she just doesn't fit in. Bernadette moved from LA to Seattle because she could not longer handle the shame of her Architect failure with the Twenty Mile House. After almost running Audrey Griffin over in the school parking lot and Audrey making a big scene over it, removing blackberries from her yard and creating a mudslide destroying the Kindergarten breakfast at Audrey's home and being made fun of by the other Galer Street mom's because she doesn't volunteer at the school often. Bernadette can no longer handle these pressures either and blows up in front of Soo-Lin during the intervention, "Oh, shut up. What the hell are you doing here anyway? Will someone open a window and let the gnat out?" (221 Semple). She could not longer handle Seattle and wanted to leave.

3. All the pressure from the Twenty Mile House
Bernadette was an architect before having Bee and moving Seattle. She was one of the only women in architecture so there was pressure just in her job. After the Twenty Mile House in LA was destroyed, Bernadette could not longer handle the pressures of being an architect so she decided to move out of LA with Elgin to Seattle and start a new life. She no longer was an architect instead she took care of Bee and the home.  "Bernadette Fox never built another house. She moved to Seattle with her husband, who got a job at Microsoft. When AIA made Fox a fellow, she didn't attend the ceremony" (130).

4. She was afraid of getting sick on the way to Antarctica
At the very beginning of the story we learn that Bee wanted to go to Antarctica with her parents if she got good grades. Bernadette started putting the trip together through her assistant in India. she checked everything off her list until she learned about the Drake Passage and that many get seasick when crossing this so Bernadette decided to look for medicine that would help her on the trip "I'm really getting scared about the trip to Antarctica . And not just because I hate people, which, for the record, I still do. I just don't think I can make it across the Drake Passage" (38). She no longer feels like going on the trip and decides to let Elgin and Bee go instead.

5. She was afraid of sending Bee off to boarding school
Most parents are sad to see their children to get on the bus for their first day of Kindergarten or see their kids leave for college. Bernadette was in a similar situation but she was sending Bee to boarding School for high school. Bernadette went to a boarding school and wanted her child to try something new. like all parents though they have this feeling that they don't want their children to leave home. Bernadette expresses her feelings in an email to her assistant, Manjula, in India, "do you hear the weeping all the way in India? Bee was accepted to Choate! Truly, I blame Elgie and myself, for regaling Bee with  our boarding school adventures" (40).

I'm not going to spoil the ending but I would read and find out if they find Bernadette. She goes on crazy adventures that are hard to follow but make you laugh out loud.