Suspend disbelief.
Put aside your hatred for the wealthy worried-well.
If you're from Seattle, set aside your cold Nordic humorlessness.
This book is fun. It's not brilliant, it's not life-changing, it's not The Next Great American Novel. But it works for what it is: a light, funny, epistolary novel chronicling the minorly disastrous consequences of one woman's snobbery, social phobia, and artistic discontent. It is also about her fifteen year-old daughter who is trying desperately to find her now-missing mother and save her parents from their stupid selfish decisions.
The mother-daughter relationship is what holds this book together and makes it something more than the dreadful "breezy beach read" it seemed destined to be (seriously... the cover? Why not just put lipstick and a shopping bag on the front. Jesus H. Christ...) However, the husband/wife relationship is not as well developed. It feels hollow and flat and we never truly understand why Bernadette is with her uptight computer-programming husband.
Semple skewers Seattle-ites, Microsofties, gifted teens, and grasping middle-class soccer moms. Many of Semple's jabs are predictable and clichéd but her region-specific pokes are spot-on and appreciated by this region-specific reader.
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