A brilliant novel from the author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette, about a day in the life of Eleanor Flood, forced to abandon her small ambitions and awake to a strange, new future. Eleanor knows she’s a mess. But today, she will tackle the little things. She will shower and get dressed. She will have her poetry and yoga lessons after dropping off her son, Timby. She won’t swear. She will … swear. She will initiate sex with her husband, Joe. But before she can put her modest plan into action-life happens. Today, it turns out, is the day Timby has decided to fake sick to weasel his way into his mother’s company. It’s also the day Joe has chosen to tell his office-but not Eleanor-that he’s on vacation. Just when it seems like things can’t go more awry, an encounter with a former colleague produces a graphic memoir whose dramatic tale threatens to reveal a buried family secret.
TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT is a hilarious, heart-filled story about reinvention, sisterhood, and how sometimes it takes facing up to our former selves to truly begin living.
* Instant New York Times Bestseller *
Named a Notable Book of 2016 by the Washington Post, one of Amazon’s Top 100 Books of the Year, one of New York Times Book Review’s 100 Notable Books, one of The Guardian’s Best Books of 2016, one of NPR’s Best Books of 2016, a Must-Read Book of 2016 by PopSugar, one of EW’s 20 Best Books of 2016, one of Glamour’s Top Ten Books of the Year, and one of Kirkus Reviews’ “Best 100 Fiction Books of 2016”
more
I guess I have a soft spot for hopefully neurotic characters…Eleanor really spoke to me! I like the zany and unbalanced relationship between Eleanor and her son…it was similar to the relationship between Bernadette and her daughter in Where Did You Go, Bernadette? Both books are wonderfully weird.
I wanted to follow up on my review of “Where’d You Go Bernadette?” with a review of Maria Semple’s following book.
I don’t understand the negative reviews of this book. Semple is smart, insightful, and incredibly funny. Okay, the protagonist isn’t the most lovable person in the world, but she is honest, aware of her flaws, and the product of a traumatic childhood. She’s also hilarious. I loved this book and believe Semple is a gifted novelist, who creates fully fleshed characters in a world that’s well-drawn, believable and relatable. This woman can write and I, for one, will read everything she publishes.
What contemporary novelist is funnier than Maria Semple? I think maybe none. I’ve always had a special place in my heart for humor in fiction, dating back to my teenage years of re-reading Catch-22 over and over, consuming all of Kurt Vonnegut. But if there’s one thing that I think can fall absolutely flat, it’s a joke on a page. In a movie, I’m willing to tolerate 9 bad jokes if the 10th is side-splitting, but to me the page is completely unforgiving of failed humor. Or at least I’m a completely unforgiving reader of it; nothing makes me reject a book faster.
None of which is to say that humor is the main thing I get out of Maria’s books. It’s definitely not. But I think it’s the aspect of writing at which she excels, and I think it may be hardest thing in fiction.
Hard to get into.
Maria Semple is obviously a funny writer, which is hard to pull off. She does comedy brilliantly. She can create quirky, interesting characters. This book had both those elements, but the structure of the novel (plot, character arc, intention) didn’t deliver, and the book ended up being a little disjointed, a little meaningless. Like some other readers, I found myself skimming the book half way through to see if it got better. It didn’t.
I loved Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple. So when this came out, a friend of mine got an opportunity to get an autographed copy for me. Love the autograph but not the book. She stories are funny and a bit twisted. This book lacked the funny.
I loved this book so much. The whole story takes place in a single day, but it encompasses a marriage, a childhood, half a lifetime, all conveyed in wonderful prose amidst this sort of madcap tragic adventure as the main character tries to figure out where her husband has been spending his days.
This is a terrific book — hilarious but serious at the same time. It all takes place in the a single day (though with several key flashbacks) and tracks the moods, anxieties and harrowing (but funny) experiences of a woman approaching 50 and experiencing a mid-life crisis of sorts. Highly recommended.
I did not enjoy this book. The main character makes one foolish decision after the next. The author does a good job getting the reader inside character’s head, but I did not like the character as she was too squirrelly to be relatable. (to me). I did like the five year old boy.
If only the title were true! that today would be different. for this mama, not so much. hilarious and heartbreaking all at once. sharp and sarcastic, just like I love!
Liked the book but not as much a Where did you go Bernadette by the same author.
I had really enjoyed this author’s previous novel, so gave this a read. While nothing can compare to the craziness of Where’d You Go, Bernadette, this was still very entertaining.
I got a little lost in the middle, but once I powered through, it began to make sense…..well, as much sense as the protagonist’s life can make. I had a hard time putting this down. Although the story unfolds in a day it goes back decades. I love how so many seemingly unrelated details are given the reader in order to paint a vivid picture of the characters. Just like real life, you never know what will lead to where. This had me grateful for the simplicity of my life.
Not sure why this was a best seller. Not sure why anyone this uninvolved in her family was made into a main character. She is shallow and self centered and a terrible mother. I kept thinking ” grow up”. An easy read.
I enjoyed this book although I had to go back and reread certain passages because I would get confused. She changed back and forth among the characters in a way that sometimes made the story disjointed. I could relate to the main character in many ways in that she seems to understand that she has some real issues and she wants to try to resolve them, but she’s not so great on the follow through. The story has a hopeful ending even though all the problems are not “fixed”.