A whip-smart, hysterical dramedy about a family in crisis after the disappearance of its brilliant, misanthropic matriarch. 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.
Hilarious and wild, this book takes you on a journey and I enjoyed every bit of it. There's something about books that are built on the "letters and emails and articles" of its characters. It's a frame tale, told by Balakrishna or "Bee" as she's called, who's trying to find her mother, who has disappeared. She's written a "book," in this case the book you're holding in your hands, which is a compilation of her narrative and the narrative told by others through letters, faxes, emails, and articles.
I'd recommend it as a vacation read or if someone's looking for humorous literary fiction (I can get so bored by literary fiction because it seems inundated with "serious" stories and it's almost as if life can't be fun while being "literary" - thankfully this book is a clear example that that's not true). It reminds me a bit of Jane Austen - not in its subject matter, but more in its satire of life in Seattle and socialites and rich people. It has the good humor of Jane Austen and the larger than life adventure of Mark Twain novels. Honestly, I'd highly recommend it.
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