Where'd You Go, Bernadette

By Maria Semple

Subjects: Antarctica, fiction, Mothers and daughters, fiction, Missing persons, fiction, Fiction, family life, general, Seattle (wash.), fiction, New York Times bestseller, Fiction, family life, Missing persons, Fiction, nyt:e-book-fiction=2012-09-02, Women architects, Phobias, Mothers and daughters

Description: "Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom. Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle--and people in general--has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic. To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence"--Publisher information.