Washington
Suggested by: Kaity
Traveled: May 21-25

Everything about Where’d You Go, Bernadette? went down easy. It’s written in quippy correspondences, a narrative pieced together through emails and letters dashed off to secretaries. It’s a novel I read almost without noticing, so accustomed am I to scanning messages and texts during my in-between times. Its structure made it breeze by, and its setting in Seattle’s West coast tech world was familiar enough for me to register the satire and warmly appreciate it.

Also, full disclosure, I read this book on vacation. There was this handsome dude on the towel next to me waiting to slather me down with a giant bottle of sunscreen (we’re talkin’ every ginger’s fantasy here). So yeah, the plot twists brought on by Seattle’s pervasive rain only made me feel giddier and more relaxed that I don’t live in Washington. Passive aggressive housewives and a bizarre ending in Antarctica reinforced a smug contentment with where I am in my life. I thoroughly enjoyed the humorous and neurotic world of Bernadette, if only for the moments when I got to put the book down and feel more wholly the beauty of my own day.

Bernadette was a lovely little rest stop before my itinerary turns to denser pages and some veritable classics. A perfect beach read. It even managed, in its simplicity, to sneak in some profound moments about the power of creative expression and the consequences of feeling unrooted. Refreshed, I’m back from vacation and ready for Alaska.