Today Will Be Different
Today Will Be Different book cover

Today Will Be Different

Hardcover – October 4, 2016

by
Price
$7.74
Format
Hardcover
Pages
272
Publisher
Little, Brown and Company
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0316403436
Dimensions
6.25 x 1 x 9.5 inches
Weight
1.1 pounds

Description

An Amazon Best Book of October 2016: Maria Semple returns to the Seattle of her previous novel Where’d You Go, Bernadette? , this time with the protagonist Eleanor Flood, a status-conscious transplant who vows on page one that Today will be different . Spoiler alert: not really... at least not in the way that she thinks. Semple’s greatest asset as a writer is her charm, and her many fans—myself included—would gladly follow her wherever she will lead us. Semple’s spot-on eye for the telling, quirky detail and her sense of humor are enough to carry a novel, but in Today Will Be Different she introduces a few weightier strands to the story that could signal more depth to come in future novels. It’s fun to read Maria Semple’s books, and it’s fun to imagine where she’ll take us next. --Chris Schluep, The Amazon Book Review 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" "Another tour de force.... The success of this poetic, seriously funny and brainy dream of a novel -- 'Mrs. Dalloway Takes Laughing Gas,' perhaps -- has to do with Maria Semple's range of riffs and preoccupations. All kinds of details, painful and perverse and deeply droll, cling to her heroine and are appraised and examined and skewered and simply wondered at. If that's considered a trick, readers of Semple's novel will be overjoyed to fall for it."-- Meg Wolitzer, New York Times Book Review "Writing a comedy novel that manages to connect emotionally is no easy task, but Semple knocks it out of the park. TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT is hilarious, moving and written perfectly, and it makes a good case for Semple as one of America's best living comic novelists."-- Michael Schaub, NPR.org "Readers who devoured Where'd You Go, Bernadette will love Eleanor [Flood]'s wry voice and dark humor." --Kim Hubbard, People "Loopy, deeply and darkly funny, and brave.... Semple is a master of the social skewer, boldly impolite and impolitic.... Eleanor is as sharp and Semple-esque as they come, which is to say a delightful danger to herself and others, sympathetic, and so very smart."-- Elinor Lipman, Washington Post "A little bit wacky and always wise, and we recognize people we know--including ourselves--on every page."-- Elisabeth Egan, Glamour "Outrageously funny. But [TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT] cuts closer to the bone than Bernadette did, and its main character's problems feel more real.... Ms. Semple is an immensely appealing writer, and there's something universal in her heroine's efforts to get a handle on a life spinning out of control. We may not all have long-lost sisters who live in the most crazily status-obsessed corners of the South, but we surely know what she means about waking up each dawn with new resolve that melts by midmorning."-- Janet Maslin, New York Times "Semple brilliantly conveys a whole array of angst -- self-deprecation and existential dread and a panic attack of neuroses -- while simultaneously packing in a liberal dose of levity.... It's a joy to watch Eleanor struggle to change for the better. That we get to laugh along with her is an added bonus."-- Maris Kreizman, Los Angeles Times "Deliciously mucky mayhem." -- San Francisco Chronicle "A vivid, hilarious, remarkably compact book--271 pages' worth of crisp observations and occasionally too-close-to-home truths about modern relationships. And it's anchored by a gorgeous scrapbook-slash-mini-graphic novel."-- Brian Raftery, Wired "Quirky and blade-sharp." --Tina Jordan and Isabella Biedenharn, Entertainment Weekly "Wickedly funny.... Semple's trademark dark humor and knack for creating a page-turning story out of socially awkward interactions will make this one you can't put down--and won't want to."-- Adam Rathe, Town and Country "A zesty, memorable novel." -- Suzy Feay, Guardian "Brisk, amusing and engaging, and Semple is a champion observer of the human condition."-- Connie Ogle , Miami Herald "TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT is so unique, so smart, so funny, so beautifully humane, so utterly of our times, it's astonishing. I've scribbled exclamation points and underlined passages on almost every single page so I can go back and savor. I've started quoting it as if it's already a classic--which, no doubt, it will be." --Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl and Dark Places "Written with Semple's hilarity-cum-sincerity, Eleanor grapples with the past to reconcile her future and makes readers smile." -- Steph Opitz, Marie Claire "Crackling with honesty and heart."-- Jarry Lee, BuzzFeed "TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT starts off as a funny, rant-y novel and becomes, by its end, an unexpectedly heartfelt exploration of a woman's inner life. (And yes, it's still funny.)"-- Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times "Fans of Bernadette will recognize Semple's propulsive and satirical dialogue." -- Trine Tsouderos, Chicago Tribune "TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT is a sublimely funny and inventive novel driven by Maria Semple's razor-sharp observations and a voice that leaps from the page." --Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins "Consistently funny.... The heart of this book, the parts Semple wraps the best language around, is Eleanor's fear of her chosen family's rejection. Her aging body makes her feel inadequate, and she uses buckets of hilarious, fresh-seeming self-deprecatory language about that. The absurd lengths she goes to and the level of creativity she employs to seek out her husband's secret are the funniest, most moving parts of the book. In these moments, Semple's humor is tight and self-aware. Her scene-setting abilities amaze." --Rich Smith, The Stranger "Hilarious and smart."-- Claire Stern, InStyle "A second dose of [Semple's] madcap genius." --Tiffany Blackstone, Redbook "Semple has mastered the intersection of sad and nuts like no one else.... Like a cross between Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, the best episides of Bob's Burgers, and the private journal of the smartest, most irritable woman you know, TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT is a reckless and scattershot work of genius."― Heather Havrilesky, Bookforum "Peppered with unforgettable one liners, laugh-out-loud funny observations, and plenty of those little truths we all think to ourselves but never say out loud. Eleanor's outlook on life, her internal dialogue and the conversations she carries out with others -- all brought to life on the page through Semple's whip smart writing -- will have you blinking back tears."-- Sadie L. Trombetta, Bustle "Whipsmart, dazzling, darkly comic and deeply touching. I loved it!" --Marian Keyes, author of The Brightest Star in the Sky and This Charming Man "Equal parts smart and funny." --Jenny Comita, W "A smart, laugh-out-loud funny, and thoughtful novel about how we reinvent ourselves and how we need to face the truth about our lives before we can truly change." --Brenda Janowitz, PopSugar "Bittersweet, hilarious, perceptive." -- The Millions " Where'd You Go, Bernadette had a madcap vibe and a 'bad mother' protagonist that captivated readers. TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT has the same snappy dialogue, zippy adventures and inside jokes about the Seattle scene."-- Meganne Fabrega, Minneapolis Star Tribune "Semple is second to none in humorous fiction. Her heroines are deeply flawed but totally relatable, and Eleanor is no exception. TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT is filled with transcendent moments of humanity, reminders that while we all can aspire to improve, sometimes it's OK to just appreciate what is already in front of us."-- Amy Scribner, BookPage "'Today will be different,' Eleanor Flood tells herself, and oh baby hang on for a wild ride that's like nothing Eleanor sees coming. In this brilliant depiction of a woman hanging on by her fingernails, Maria Semple delivers a perfect panic of a day on which the barely tolerable, muddle-through-it desperation that so many of us have known at one time or another suddenly erupts with life-shattering force. Can an existential crisis make us laugh? Such is Semple's talent that this one does, without losing any of the punch or gravity of the hardest kinds of lived experience." --Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk "TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT is going to delight the many, many fans of Where'd You Go, Bernadette ." --Michael Merschel, Dallas Morning News "Hilarious [and] heart-warming." --Dana Getz, Entertainment Weekly "A stressed-out heroine resolves to change her rather plush life in this comedy, whose precious Seattle setting is as ripe a target for Semple's satire as it was in Where'd You Go, Bernadette ." --Kate Tuttle, Boston Globe "God, I love Maria Semple! TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT is just as funny, poignant, and life-affirming as Bernadette ... but illustrated too!" --Nina Stibbe, author of Love, Nina and Paradise Lodge "Fans of Where'd You Go, Bernadette will eat up Semple's entertaining new novel about a graphic artist. In it, the imperfect wife and mother (is there any other kind?) vows to up her domestic game, only to have her day go badly awry." --Jane Henderson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch "A precocious child, a stale marriage and plenty of clever quirk make this a story you can't put down. Expect glares from fellow passengers as you laugh out loud." --Melissa Kravitz, AM New York "I had the uncanny feeling, while reading TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT, that Maria Semple had somehow snuck into my house when I was asleep, took an x-ray image of my heart, then painted it by hand in neon colors. This book is searingly honest and hilarious and dark and neurotic. It is dizzying. Best of all, it is delicious." --Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies "Hilarious and touching, this will satisfy Semple's numerous fans and gain her new ones. Give this to readers of women's fiction, Seattle denizens and aspiring residents, and people reviewing their lives and choices." --Alene Moroni, Booklist "With a strong narrative voice, fast pace and her signature wit, Semple cleverly spins another raucously funny story wound around deeper implications about the unexpected ways life teaches us to find meaning." --Kathleen Gerard, Shelf Awareness "An introspective look, both comedic and tragic, at attempting to be the best one can be." --Stephanie Sendaula, Library Journal "A sharp, funny read.... Consistently entertaining." -- Publishers Weekly "Few will be indifferent to this achingly funny and very dear book. This author is on her way to becoming a national treasure." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Nothing short of a masterpiece." -- Sophie Flack, Boston Globe "In her latest brainy, seriously funny novel, private school parents, a husband's secret life and more confront a Seattle woman."-- Editors' Choice, New York Times Book Review "A comedic whirlwind of lessons about life, family and facing your past." -- Parade "Filled with all the zany twists and signature humor that made Where'd You Go Bernadette a runaway hit." -- Liz Loerke, Real Simple "Think Modern Family meets 24 ." -- The Skimm "[A] cringe comedy of manners."-- Natalie Beach, O Magazine "The desperate housewives of Seattle.... You'll chortle into your morning cup of Starbucks." --Billy Heller, New York Post "It's the promise of what tomorrow holds for Eleanor that makes her worth getting to know"― Shannon Carlin, Bust "We've all had the 'day from hell,' but we can't make it as clever, fun, or whip-smart as Semple, the presiding queen of literary screwball satire."― National Book Review "Downright hard to put down.... unrelentingly entertaining, with some nice pathos thrown in the mix."― Steph Cha, USA Today (3/4 stars) "Absolutely delicious black comedy.... A witty delight."― Yvonne Zipp, Christian Science Monitor "Humorously depicts the struggle to keep it together."― Jamie Blynn, US Weekly "Comedic and charming."― Leigh Nordstrom, Women's Wear Daily "There are few readers who won't find the pathos and struggle of [Eleanor's] journey towards her new and really authentic self genuine and heartfelt."― Jana Siciliano, Bookreporter "There are some glorious moments of social satire."― Zoë Apostolides, Financial Times "[Semple's] a master at creating comedy out of the neuroses of people with too much time and money on their hands."― Izzy Grinspan, New York Magazine "Semple...has a singular genius for turning the ordinary inside-out and looking at it slantwise.... The allusions are quick and rich, the riffs nonstop and spot-on, and the results surprising."― Ellen Akins, Newsday "While TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT can be outrageously funny, it reaches deeper into its protagonist and finds unstill waters, a river of sadness, deep within."― Jeremy Kohler, St. Louis Post-Dispatch "Semple...has crafted another fast-paced story full of twists and turns that double down on 'mean is funny.' The result is a biting satire of well-off white liberal life that skewers everything in its path while maintaining a level of affection for its characters that balances out its acerbic sensibility."― Wendeline O. Wright, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Both hilarious and moving." ― Terry Gross, NPR's Fresh Air "Warm, funny and seriously good."― Daily Kos "A quick punch to the funny bone."― San Antonio Express-News "Nothing could top Semple's Where'd You Go, Bernadette but her new comic novel comes close.... You'll laugh. A lot."― Sherryl Connelly, New York Daily News "It's pretty much impossible to read Maria Semple without wanting to give the author a fist-bump. She holds up the coolest, cruelest mirror to today's farm-to-tech society."― Joanna Novak, Bustle "Compulsively readable and surprisingly resonant.... Perfectly captures what it feels like to be a parent and a sibling and a wife and an artist, especially one who continuously feels that she is doing it all imperfectly." ― Adrienne Martini, Austin Chronicle "The humor, deft plotting and fresh and witty writing that trademark Semple's fiction will win you over." ― Jeffrey Ann Goudie, Kansas City Star "With her keen eye for detail and a razor-sharp, snark-tinged wit, Semple is becoming one of our great writers about place."― Andrew Travers, Aspen Times "Semple has created a depressed, mean-spirited, forgetful, self-centered, scatterbrained and sometimes unlikable main character that you can't help but fall in love with"― Denver Post "an irresistibly funny portrait of a woman who refuses to give up on love"― Moira McDonald , Seattle Times Maria Semple is the author of This One Is Mine and Today Will Be Different . Before turning to fiction, she wrote for Mad About You , Ellen , and Arrested Development .xa0Her writing has appeared inxa0The New Yorker.xa0She lives in Seattle. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • A brilliant novel and instant New York Times bestseller 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 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.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(2K)
★★★★
20%
(1.3K)
★★★
15%
(982)
★★
7%
(458)
★
28%
(1.8K)

Most Helpful Reviews

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Bernadette 2.0

When I read Where'd You Go, Bernadette? I assumed that the fractured nature of the novel was probably something Semple had to get off her chest, and the editors had indulged her because the writing was so funny, the jokes so good. Even though that novel implodes about halfway through and never recovers, it was witty and different enough to be a good read.

So when I read Today Will Be Different, I understood that all my assumptions were wrong and that Semple simply cannot write a decent storyline. She is funnier than ever here -- and Eleanor Flood is a much more sympathetic character than Bernadette was, at least to me -- but again, the story races along merrily for about 75 to 100 pages, then introduces a completely new plotline that readers will not have seen coming and must struggle to care about. Without spoilers, I can only say that you can't introduce a new character this late, never really bring her to light, and then expect us to believe that the protagonist has been obsessed with her and only her for years.

And it gets worse. The sort of half-mystery plot that underpins the madcap surface action comes to fruition about 20 pages before the end of the novel -- yep! -- in a simply ridiculous, deus ex machina way. Is she kidding? Is Semple sending up the art of fiction, or something, and we're supposed to see how clever it is? Where is the heart of this novel? Is it simply the personality of Eleanor Flood, in all her mercurial pointlessness? Is it the study of a marriage? The insanity of life in Seattle right about now? Some weird treatise on parenting? (Semple's children are irritatingly precious, by the way.)

I cannot for the life of me figure out what we are supposed to concern ourselves with, and it's maddening because Semple actually writes quite well. There are priceless one-liners, my favorite being Eleanor's anxious, "Stop talking about Jesus! People will think we're poor!" There are pithy comments on the current state of living, parenting, eating, cohabiting -- all of these individually are wonderful, but they add up to considerably less than their parts. Maybe Semple should be an essayist? Some shorter media might suit her better, because the idea that 200 pages of this stuff -- with insane, and I mean OUT THERE, plot twists -- equals a novel is just wrong.

So many things cry out for the editor's pencil that you wonder if this book got any editing at all. The T-shirt with the clown and the words Meyer Mania is an interesting bit of trivia until you realize that Meyer is Semple's married name, so it's undoubtedly some kind of in-joke. The rich and endlessly accommodating husband, identical to the one in Bernadette, is nothing more than a plot device to explain why Eleanor has no money issues and all this time on her hands. The elaborate backstory, filled with excesses of one kind or another, substitutes for real character development and feeling. The relentlessly hectic, breakneck pacing keeps you flipping pages without thinking too closely about what's really going on. And the conclusion -- I cannot ask enough questions about the bizarre final 20 or so pages.

So why, you might ask at this point, did I give the novel 3 stars? Well, the writing is funny. I couldn't put the book down, frustrated though I was at it. It's almost a novelty item, a curiosity that should be read. Just don't expect to be fulfilled.
97 people found this helpful
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In Maria Semple's novels, the woman is always eccentric. In this one, she's also moving and profound.

"Today will be different. Today I will be present. Today, anyone I’m speaking to, I will look them in the eye and listen deeply. Today I’ll play a board game with Timby. I’ll initiate sex with Joe. Today I will take pride in my appearance. I’ll shower, get dressed in proper clothes and only change into yoga clothes for yoga, which today I will actually attend. Today I won’t swear. I won’t talk about money. Today there will be an ease about me. My face will be relaxed, its resting place a smile. Today I will radiate calm. Kindness and self-control will abound. Today I will buy local. Today I will be my best self, the person I’m capable of being. Today will be different."

That’s the opening paragraph of “Today Will Be Different.”

You don’t need to be a mind reader to know that her narrator, Eleanor Flood, can’t possibly succeed at all of those pledges.

If you have ever had a conversation like that with yourself — and who hasn’t? — you hope she ticks off most — okay, some — of those boxes.

But, as a reader, you worry: 260 pages about a single day? [Admit it, you never got to the end of James Joyce’s “Ulysses.”)

I had a special worry. I am a fan of Maria Semple’s novels — with qualifications.

I stopped loving "This One Is Mine" well before the end. Because I thought I’d already read the end. Only it kept on going. “For the characters, the complexity, the drop-dead dialogue, ‘This One Is Mine’ is a spectacular debut, and Maria Semple is the real thing,” I wrote. “ If only I were her editor!”

I had the same problem with "Where’d You Go, Bernadette." The last section — a 75-page account of a trip to Antarctica — stopped me like a polar wind.

So I am pleased to report that “Today Will Be Different” is completely worthy of the praise it’s getting. You can see, as you could in her earlier books, that Semple was once a writer of high-end TV comedy. (“Mad About You” and “Arrested Development”). But you can also see that life has kicked her around a bit, and she’s thought deeply about marriage and motherhood and careers, and what she’s come up with is very much worth your attention.

Will Eleanor Flood remind Semple’s fans of Bernadette? Very much. They both live in Seattle. Like Bernadette, Eleanor had a big career in the increasingly distant past, as an animator for “Looper Wash,” an unlikely TV hit series about four girls who have an “unconscious fear of puberty.” She has a son who is a Character and who attends the same school as Bernadette’s kid. Is now a bit lost in her eccentricities and privilege — she’s not working killer hours to deliver a graphic novel that was due to her publisher eight years ago; she’s surprised to learn her editor now runs a cheese shop and that graphic novels are no longer popular.

There is a story, and it’s complicated. Eleanor’s husband, a gifted surgeon, seems to have gone missing without leaving town. She reads poetry with a personal tutor, who is enlisted to babysit her son, who cannot, on this day, make it to noon at school. A canceled lunch date. And a back story, complete with a 14-page full-color insert. And if I tell you more, your head will start to spin and you’ll think this is fancy, absurdist writing, meant to dazzle. It’s anything but.

Semple, in an interview: "One of the things Eleanor realizes is that her marriage is on auto-pilot and if it keeps going that way they’re just gonna be two strangers in a business of raising a child together, where their life just becomes scheduling and emailing each other. … And where he would be going to jazz by himself and she would just be off in her own head. And so this is a book to me about the decision to dig in and to try to, as Eleanor says, not mistake love for youth. You know, that when you’re young you’re just crazy about each other and now you have to work a little harder at it."

And, writing as Eleanor, from the book:

"If I see you about to criticize me, I leap in and criticize myself . . . so afraid of rejection that I turned every interaction into a life-or-death charm offensive."
"…but life is one long headwind. To make any kind of impact requires self-will bordering on madness. The world will be hostile, it will be suspicious of your intent, it will misinterpret you, it will pack you with doubt, it will flatter you into self-sabotage— my God, I’m making it sound so glamorous and personal! What the world is, more than anything? It’s indifferent."
"My accomplishments? To most people they’d be the stuff of pipe dreams. Anything I’d set out to achieve in this lifetime, I’d done with grace to spare. Except loving well the people I loved the most."
"If underneath all anger was fear, then under all fear was love. Everything came down to the terror of loving what you love."

And more. I underlined as if I have to take an exam on the book.

Why this book? Why now? Semple: "The first day when I sat down trying to think of what my new novel would be, I really tried to just be quiet and write what’s the part of myself that I don’t want other people to know and the part that I’m ashamed of, the part that I wish wasn’t the case. And I almost verbatim wrote that first page of the book."

In that spirit, I believe, she wrote the rest of the book. Yes, it’s funny. But it also feels familiar, in a way that hurts. And then heals.

I never thought I’d say a Maria Semple novel moved me. Well, I’m saying it here.
67 people found this helpful
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The irresponsible antics of a negligent mother are played off as cute, funny, endearing. Nope.

Here we have Eleanor, a scatterbrained wife and mother who heedlessly careens through her day; stealing another woman's keys, smashing her head at an art exhibit and passing out, dumping her phone in a bait bucket, forgetting her dog at Costco, driving with a concussion and getting attacked by a German shepherd. Are we supposed to find such behavior endearing? Humorous? Shake our heads with a knowing chuckle: ah, well, that's just how ARTISTS are!
I was so disappointed in "Today Will Be Different." It just doesn't live up to the hype, especially after the brilliance that was 'Where'd You Go, Bernadette?' Yes, it's sharp-witted and kind of interesting in an offbeat way, but it's also cartoonish. Entirely implausible. Like watching a circus on LSD.

Reframe the perspective a bit and Eleanor's behavior isn't "cute" fodder for a story but rather shameful negligence of an unfit mother.

I won't give away the ending except to say that it didn't connect. It felt very contrived. Wish I hadn't spent the money on this book. Should have borrowed it from the library instead.
63 people found this helpful
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Not exactly what I expected but I enjoyed it

3.5 stars

Today Will Be Different is an interesting read. Semple’s last book, Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, was laugh-out-loud funny and very entertaining. I was hoping that Today Will Be Different would be the same. While it is entertaining, laugh-out-loud funny it is not. There are certainly some funny parts, such as her child being named Timby because her iPhone corrected Timothy to Timby and it stuck (my iPhone is constantly correcting things I meant to type to random, bizarre words that make no sense so I could certainly relate to that). I also love the concussion app that Timby found when he was worried his mother Eleanor had a concussion – every five minutes it randomly asks a new question meant to check a person’s alertness. These questions were interjected at odd and usually comical times.

I found the book fairly sad and wished that some of Eleanor’s issues had been resolved more, particularly one she has with a family member. I was glad I read today Will Be Different, but Where’d You Go, Bernadette? remains my favorite by far.
37 people found this helpful
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Pretentious and awful main character

Loved Bernadette so immediately ordered this one. Sorry I spent money on the hardcover! Main character, Eleanor, is spoiled, annoying and completely unlikeable even though the author tries to elicit sympathy for her with the childhood backstory and issues with the sister. Very condescending in thought and deed to everyone around her in the, "I'm financially well off and don't need to work so everything I say and do just must be superior to everyone I deign to come in contact with" vein. Very telling that she seems to have only one friend and that one she just complains about (and who makes only a couple of brief appearances). Maybe there is a reason she has no friends, but this was never explored. Can't imagine being married to someone like that, so totally expected the husband to leave her as that would have made sense. Overall characters seemed very caricatured/one-dimensional. Book is also rather short so seemed the author was grasping to flesh out a novel-length tome. I will grant that some sentences were very funny and well constructed/original but not enough to carry a story I cared about in the slightest. In many scenes intended to be comedic Eleanor just comes across as a self-absorbed a-hole. At least it was a quick read (because it was so short and had so many blank pages) so not a lot of wasted time. Hope the next one from this author is better.
27 people found this helpful
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A rambling mess.

What? I don't get this book at all. I read a lot and can almost always find a good thing that say about an author, a story, a writing style, and while I enjoyed Where'd You Go Bernadette I could not get into this book. It rambled from one dumb scenario to the next with no build up of a story, 'no suspense and no resolution. Just a bunch of dumb and fairly unconnected crazy situations. I kept waiting for the story to resolve, to make sense and when I turned the last page on my electronic version o just went "huh??". I'd love my time and cash back, this book sucked!
18 people found this helpful
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convoluted story telling

Impossible to follow and largely disjointed, too many characters. A frantic retelling of love, relationships and childcare. I had no idea what was going on and tried but failed to finish this book on three occasions. Skip it.
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Today will be tiresome.

The quirky musing and the treasure hunt around Seattle are redolent of Where'd you go Bernadette, but a lot of this book sank under the weight of its own pretense. The ending, which is revelatory, or wants to be, is such a clunky way to end a story that started out to be about dysfunctional childhood and ends up being as satisfying as a sausage sample at Costco. Crushing disappointment, terrible tease of poetry misused and abused.
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Lacks humor and heart

Having loved both of Maria Semple's earlier novels, This One is Mine and Where'd You go, Bernadette, I was chomping at the bit for her third effort. I bought it on Kindle because I was too excited to wait for my library's copy to come available, and read it as soon as I could. I should have waited. This one was a big disappointment. It hit Semple's now-familiar tropes: rich, unfulfilled wife trying to make sense of her overprivileged existence; a successful, long-suffering husband going through issues of his own; a cast of odd, lovable, and annoying characters; and of course a quirky and precocious child who ends up redeeming them all. Fair enough. But in her first two books, the main character's acidic observations and self-defeating actions are leavened with a dose of humor and a sense of empathy. I rooted for Violet, Bernadette, and most of the other characters in the first two novels to find their way home, so to speak. Not this time.
This novel was told in the first person, always tricky, so the whole thing unfolded basically from inside Eleanor Flood's head - not a fun place to be. The novel felt like one long rant, devoid of the humor that leavened the tartness of Semple's first two novels. I found Eleanor boring, her actions mean and inexplicable, and - unlike Violet and Bernadette - I did not root for her. The action felt frenetic, but there was not enough heart there to ground the story, so events just careened from one thing to another, leaving me feeling irritated and bored. And I had so looked forward to laughing!
Why I gave it 2 stars: It was well-written. And to be fair, Semple set herself a tough challenge: to have all the events of the novel occur over the course of one day. This understandably required a lot of flashbacks and backstory to be filled in over the course of the novel. It could have been a cool experiment, but instead it felt digressive and disjointed to me. Each time I felt like I was getting close to the end, Eleanor would run into another character I didn't care about or lapse into another flashback I didn't care about. For her next novel, I hope Semple uses her obvious talents to tell her story with humor and heart.
14 people found this helpful
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Officially the worst book I have ever read!

Let me first say that I love to read. I love all sorts of books and enjoy reading them even if they aren't my style or choice. I am in a number of book clubs. This book is terrible. The plot is pathetic, the characters so stupidly unbelievable and not one part could possibly be real. Absolute rubbish and a waste of time. Do not spend your money on this one. Seriously.......
9 people found this helpful

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