Firstly I must say this book is nothing like I imagined from the cover or even the blurb.
I thought this would be a quick shallow read. I was totally wrong on one aspect. This book was indeed a quick read because I simply couldn’t put it down but it was far from shallow.
While covering many issues on the side lines it is simply the search for the real Bernadette.
You quickly engage with the characters and it is an absolute pleasure to read.
Most certainly highly recommended.
The story is told using numerous documents e.g. emails, faxes, letters, transcripts between, and from, a number of characters in the book. This allows the reader to see the misunderstandings, the misinformation and the general mischief of some of the characters. Really clever and amusing. I was loving this book and the climax of the intervention was really well built up. I was tearing through the book to see how this would play out but then well it… stopped.. well not literally but it floundered after Bernadette’s ‘disappearance’. This conincided with the point of view changing gradually from multiple characters (with additional comments from Bernadette’s daughter, Bee) to principally Bee’s POV. This change involved an explanation, which hindered the flow and we lost this multi charactered, humorous, unique reader perspective. Two thirds of the way through the book, I’m having to readjust to having a single perspective, with a character that I haven’t fully identified with and the ending feels disjointed to my earlier reading experience. Overall I’m left with a feeling of dissatisfaction after finishing this book. Good but flawed.