When her notorious, hilarious, volatile, talented, troubled and agoraphobic mother goes missing, teenage Bee begins a trip that takes her to the ends of the earth to find her in this new novel from the author of This One is Mine. 25,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)

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--creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world. - (Hachette Book Group)

Maria Semple's first novel, This One is Mine, was set in Los Angeles, where she also wrote for television shows including Arrested Development, Mad About You, and Ellen. She escaped from Los Angeles and lives with her family in Seattle, where her second novel takes place. - (Hachette Book Group)

Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* Bernadette Fox is on the edge of a breakdown. She hates living in Seattle and calls the moms at her daughter's private school "gnats." But Bernadette adores her precocious daughter, Bee, and is looking forward to a family trip to Antarctica. Yet after a disastrous school fund-raiser and a botched psychiatric intervention, Bernadette disappears. Convinced her mother is alive, Bee is determined to find her mom and bring her home. Reader Wilhoite mines the humor and pathos in this quirky story, told through e-mails, letters, school memos, documents, and first-person narrative. Wilhoite handles the changing formats with aplomb, and through changes in pitch, tone, and cadence, she easily transitions between the many oddball characters. She contrasts the escalating anxiety in Bernadette's e-mails with the calm responses from Bernadette's virtual assistant in India, whose businesslike and unflappable messages are spoken in a mild Indian accent. E-mail exchanges between two mothers (gnats) are a hoot, from early missives, when they mock Bernadette, to later notes, when their own lives are disintegrating. Wilhoite is equally at home speaking in a lower register for memos from a harried and increasingly upset school administrator. She pitches her voice a tad higher to capture Bee's youth and energy, allowing listeners to care about the teenager who has been through so much and just wants to find the mother she loves. Copyright 2019 Booklist Reviews.