Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple When her daughter Bee claims a family trip to Antarctica as a reward for perfect grades, Bernadette, a furiously brilliantly shut-in, throws herself into arrangements for the trip. But worn down by years of attempting to live the Seattle life she never needed, Ms. Fox is on the brink of an emergency. And after a school fundraiser goes lamentably astray at her hands, she vanishes, clearing out her family to choose up the pieces--which is precisely what Bee does, weaving together an expound web of emails, invoices, and school memos that uncovers a mystery past Bernadette has been covering up for decades. Where'd You Go Bernadette is a bright and brazenly engaging novel almost a family coming to terms with who they are and the control of a daughter's cherish for her mother.