Where'd You Go Bernadette (SP)

julie37619

Ok, I'll say the part that I found a little icky, despite loving the story and giving it five stars.  I can't get past adultery, even when the character thinks it's "justified" and we as the reader are supposed to as well.  The husband's affair and the quick forgiveness/reconciliation bothered me a bit.

Lauren620

I can't get past it either.  I think that Bernadette thought that her behavior is what pushed him to do it, but I am still not ok with it.  I was never really impressed with Elgin and this just made me like him even less.  I feel like he did nothing to really help Bernadette until he decided it was time to have her committed.  

I was sad when we found out that Mandula (I don't know how to spell it) was a fraud.  I know that Bernadette was majorly depressed and when her only friend ended up being fake, I felt really bad for her.

GilliC

The adultery didn't really put me off.  I thought it was addressed in a very realistic way, and I know couples who have been through similar situations.  While not everyone can get over it, I think there are a lot of couples who do try to patch things up and move on, and I appreciated a book that addressed this directly.  It's not always fantastic drama, and there's a lot of pain, but most affairs are a symptom of a problem in the relationship, and some people do recover.  While she could have dealt more with the aftermath, I think it might have distracted from the book.

I also kind of feel that Bernadette was cheating in a way as well.  It may not have involved another person, but she was deliberately deceiving her husband and causing strain on the marriage.  Not that it justifies his infidelity, but I want to hold her accountable for hurting everyone rather than letting her actions slide because she was a victim or because maybe his transgressions were worse.

GilliC

And on a completely different note, the thing that struck me most about the book was how horrible and selfish so many of the characters seemed at the beginning and how Semple slowly revealed more and more of the context and reality until at the end you realize that none of them were as inherently bad as they seem on the outside, because deep down all the characters are somehow broken.

When I finished it, the thing I couldn't get out of my head was the quote from Tolstoy that "every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Lauren620

GilliC said:

And on a completely different note, the thing that struck me most about the book was how horrible and selfish so many of the characters seemed at the beginning and how Semple slowly revealed more and more of the context and reality until at the end you realize that none of them were as inherently bad as they seem on the outside, because deep down all the characters are somehow broken.

When I finished it, the thing I couldn't get out of my head was the quote from Tolstoy that "every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

You are so right with all of this.  I remember thinking at first Bernadette should just snap out of it, but that was before I really knew everything that was going on.  Like her struggles to get pregnant and what happened in the hospital after Bee was born?  I felt like a jerk for judging her so unfairly in the begining.

pinkybooklover09

Hmmm...this one is on my list but I don't know if I'll like it from the way you guys are talking about it.

j*&p*

GilliC said:

I also kind of feel that Bernadette was cheating in a way as well.  It may not have involved another person, but she was deliberately deceiving her husband and causing strain on the marriage.  Not that it justifies his infidelity, but I want to hold her accountable for hurting everyone rather than letting her actions slide because she was a victim or because maybe his transgressions were worse.

I felt the same way. I usually avoid books that deal with adultery, and while it did bother me in this book, it wasn't a big enough part of the story to put me off completely. I totally agree that Bernadette was at fault too.

julie37619

pinkybooklover09 said:

Hmmm...this one is on my list but I don't know if I'll like it from the way you guys are talking about it.

It's a relatively minor plot point and it definitely didn't ruin the book for me.  It was, however, the one blight on an otherwise superb book in terms of my own enjoyment (not writing quality).

brie&drew

I was surprised by a few things in this book, and that was definitely one of them. I liked it, but I agree that Bernadette was also unfair to her family. I loved the writing and the characters, definitely one I'd recommend.

lizabethann6

I really enjoyed this book. I had a hard time with the adultery portion too but thought the author dealt with it in a realistic way. I had a hard time liking her husband even before the adultery part- I felt like he dropped the ball on getting her help that she needed a loooong time before he finally realized she needed help. Then he went zero to sixty - from barely acknowledging her issues to staging this massive intervention.