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Book Review: Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple

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When 15 year-old Bee’s mother, Bernadette, goes missing, she begins a project to work out where she went.

This book is a collection of correspondence between Bernadette and her Indian virtual assistant, Manjuela; bitchy neighbours Soon-Li and Audrey; father x and his secretary. Semple skilfully unravels each note, slowly unveiling a cast of characters with unique voices and surprising range for growth. Filled with the hilarious, the loveable, and the loathsome this supporting cast become integral to the story interweaved with Bernadettes exceptional rants.

Subtle developments are enough to keep you guessing as the cast of characters keeps you entertained. This book is not without its flaws: sometimes the boundaries of letters are pushed towards narrative convenience and effect but, for the most part, this can still be overlooked. Sticky situations are also avoided by skipping past some difficulties that the intricate plot reveals, leaving a couple of plot points at loose ends.

Despite these faults, this is a story with a huge heart, often as sweet as it is funny. Exemplary character development and skilfully overblown dramatic turns make this a hugely entertaining read. I highly recommend it.

Buy Where’d You Go, Bernadette from The Book Depository.

Have you read this book? What was your take?

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Film Review: The Host

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The Host’s aliens are amorphous white globs sprouting tentacles like one of those globes with the light that licks your fingers. Their world is slick and sterile, a “perfected” version of the world as we know it today. The human race has been inhabited – literally – by these spindly beings: pacifist, kind, and overflowing nice intentions; excepting, of course, the requirement that native species die in order that they live, using their bodies as a vessel. So far, so creepy.

Uninhabited humans are exiled, on the run from the alien race and fighting to keep their autonomy. After being caught, our typically “feisty” heroine Melanie’s (Saoirse Ronan) body is implanted with a host named Wanderer. In a rare case, she is able to fight against and manipulate the new form that has invaded her body – all of which is acted out through a series of echoey, clumsy, and embarrassingly poorly-written voiceovers. As the aliens, led by Seeker (Diane Kruger), attempt to raid her memories and find the whereabouts of the human resistance, Melanie somehow co-opts her host into an escape plan, before being systematically stripped of her personality in order that we might enjoy the simperings of her host.

Saoirse Ronan, looking serene and perfected in Host-buffed skin, does her best with a bad script. The story is a wandering, aimless mess, its sprawling chase elements over-complicated by the worst love triangle in recent years. Too many hot boys really spoil the broth: almost threesome kissing scenes, even moreso. Melanie receives numerous unnecessary kisses and slaps in the face, keeping the run-time ticking upwards and ratio of scenes with plot development ticking downwards. Meanwhile, overblown dramatic losses and repetitive poetic love-heals-all speeches work together with a complete lack of pacing to make this a resistance and a folly that seems to last an eternity.

Much like these host figures, the film is a shapeless mass of good looks and empty meanings. The result is stupid, ridiculous, and – worst of all – boring.

Film Review: The Odd Life of Timothy Green

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Aimed squarely at Middle America yet with no audience in mind, The Odd Life of Timothy Green is a modern Pinocchio story so boring it’s set in Stanleyville: a fictional town specialising in pencil production.

Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton star as Cindy and Jim Green, a couple who cannot conceive and are advised to pursue adoption. Before throwing in the towel, they compile a list of traits for their non-existent child, which they bury. A mythical rainstorm follows and hey presto, Timothy Green (CJ Adams) is “born”. With leaves on his legs and a (thankfully not literal) song in his heart, the picture book story that follows is a criminally bland series of events in the life of this happy-go-lucky fairytale boy.

In a world filled with 2-dimensional Stanleyvillains, the film’s entire premise is hung on an icky cuteness that doesn’t last as the plot drags its heels through an Indian summer of typical middle-American set pieces. Sadly Peter Hedges’ uninspired script didn’t wither and died with the autumn leaves, but the film’s box office presence is likely to.

Save your cinema visits for a kids’ film that won’t bore the pants of children and adults alike.

The Odd Life of Timothy Green is released in UK cinemas on 4 April 2013.