Today Will Be Different

This is possibly the most confusing book I've ever read. I'm an avid reader. I loved the author's other book - Bernadette. This is not even close to that. It was the writing style that I could not get over. I can't even finish it. And I've tried. I don't like the protagonist but I understand that's a character and doesn't matter if I identify with them. The writing just jumps around. It's like random thoughts and flashbacks everywhere, some with no purpose or connection. It also goes from 1st person to 3rd person. I thought I was reading it from someone else's view but that wasnt it either. Her son, Timby, is supposed to be 8, but I didn't find out til half way thru. His character sometimes sounds like a pre-teen with smart ass comments and sometimes sounds like a kindergartener. I have two small children so I know my 7 yr old and his friends wouldn't even speak like this. The background of poetry, art and animation was just confusing and not explained well. The story had a few interesting snippets before it would jump to a flashback and then the story was lost. I just can't read anymore.

Where to begin? Well, I wanted to like this book because I like Maria Semple and loved her previous book. There were clever aspects of this book but I found it tried too hard to be cerebral and to have literary chops. The problem was that the lead character Eleanor was just... silly, selfish, self-involved, and ridiculous. I read the previous reviews so I went in giving this book the benefit of the doubt. Found lots of it clever, especially the book within the book. But Eleanor was just an idiot. Eleanor and Simple completely LOST me and my interest when on page 105 she on a whim offers her family dog to a stranger and then on page 109 she ties her dog to an empty shopping cart so she can go run off and do REALLY STUPID THINGS for the balance of the book. I spent the rest of the book worrying about her dog and feeling like Eleanor was the most ephing stupid character. She didn't return to the dog until the end of the book - like an afterthought. I never do this but i literally scanned and skipped the last 30 pages of the book just to find out if she even addresses the fact that she abandoned the dog. I literally gave up on this stupid book.

"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.

“As everybody knows, being raised Catholic with half a brain means becoming an atheist,” says protagonist Eleanor Flood in Maria Semple’s Today Will Be Different. Eleanor’s the sort of person everyone knows, but no one wants to know well. She’s sarcastic, moderately angry, frustrated, definitely funny—a very East Coast character marooned in the peaceful West. She loves poetry, which is seriously intriguing—occasional “notes” in the book include poetic analysis, inspiring inspired readers to see themselves, Eleanor and poetry in a clearer light.

Most books, of course, don’t include analysis of poetry, childhood art (in color, in a book within the book), and the untold story of imaginary siblings’ adventures turned into a board game. So This Book Will Be Different, as well as the titular Today. But the book is told in thoroughly convincing voices, mothers brains really do “turn to mush … when you’re pregnant,” and there’s plenty to relate to in this novel, plus two intriguing mysteries (because we never really know anyone), a child, a dog, temptation, and even a hint of faith—appropriate after that strident defense of its lack.

Today Will Be Different is intriguingly experimental. Its denouement verges on too coincidental without quite getting there. And its characters are convincingly, sometimes achingly human. It’s the sort of book a reader will most likely hate or love.

Disclosure: I picked it up off a gift table and loved it.

Yes, there are the familiar sharp one-liners, but this ain't no "Bernadette". This is dull. The first few pages are fine then suddenly we're into flashback, Eleanor's bio, with a heavy emphasis on her strange and estranged sister. And a bit of a nasty tone creeps in here and there. I wonder if some of Semple's friends find a bit of themselves in this book - and not in a nice way - and how do they feel. So much of this seemed like a bad first draft. The characters are flat and dull and so is Eleanor. I was waiting so long for the Bernadette followup, only to get this.....Save your time and money. I won't automatically buy her next one; I'll road test a few chapters first. Fool me once....

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.

This is the story of Eleanor. For Eleanor, today seems like a disaster as she careens from one point to another. She is clearly a woman on the edge, it just changes from moment to moment whether it is the edge of disaster or the edge of improvement. We begin the story with her explaining her “trick”. The trick is her secret to cope with nervousness and to make sure that she remains liked. When she has blundered or possibly offended she quickly offers up a vulnerability or makes a joke at her own expense to diffuse the situation. Maria Semple uses a version of the trick in this book. Just when Eleanor seems to have veered over the edge into crazy, or into mean mom, or into bad friend, or into bad wife, she says or does something that moves her away from the edge. It is successful in the book, because I liked Eleanor and cared about her even when she made dubious impulsive decisions. Make no mistake, there are things in this book that you would never do, or at least that you don’t think you would do, but there are other things that you might recognize. Eleanor and Joe have been married for 20 years. They have one son, Trimby. Trimby is reason enough to read this book. He is a great character. Eleanor is an accomplished artist with a very successful animated show in her past. Joe is a successful hand surgeon. Eleanor’s childhood was not easy. Between her childhood and her sister Ivy, Eleanor is realizing that denial is not working for her. This book is talked about as a comic novel and there are some very funny things in the book. Nevertheless, the themes and issues are serious and they are dealt with seriously. Where’d You Go Bernadette seemed lighter in tone, although it also had serious themes. Like in Bernadette, the school and PTA scenes are hilarious and clearly written by someone who has done her time in the school halls as a parent. I have only two cons: First, the beginning is a bit slow and I was not sure how I felt about Eleanor or her troubles until I was further in. Patience is rewarded. Second, the comic/graphic book, The Flood Girls, is reproduced as a chapter in the book. It was not legible on my paperwhite Kindle and there is no way to increase the size of an illustration. I have this problem routinely with maps or other materials and I just ignore it as best I can. I do feel like I may have missed something that would have been easy to see in a print copy.

I adored Bernadette, but Eleanor is quite another story. I found portions of the story confusing, having to go back and figure out how the character got from one situation to another totally unrelated situation. I also didn't much like her. The woman is married to a saint, or very near, and she is a loose cannon ball rolling around randomly with no self control and sharply limited rational thinking. Sorry Maria, I heard you on NPR and thought I would like the book, but I was wrong. Better luck next time.

I bought this because I loved Semple's other book "Where'd Ya Go, Bernadette?" so much. This book is good, but not as good as that one. The ending for me was a bit of a stretch. But overall, I enjoy Semple's sense of humor and her writing style. It's both funny and touching, but often hard to really like the main character. Overall, I liked it, I read it pretty quickly which for me means I must have liked it!

I began reading this book several months ago. I couldn't get into it and put it down. I tried again the other night. I thougt I deciphered a plot. Determined to get my money's worth, I pushed forward. I loved "Where'd you go Bernadette." What a disappointment this book was! It switched from the present to flashbacks and thoughts to the present again, confusing me. I didn't even realize this whole tale took place in one day.
The narrator told us in the beginning that people "adored" her. Yet the author gave us no idea why. I didn't like her at all. She was shallow. In fact, all the characters lacked depth. I gave this book two stars for it's difficulty to follow.

First of all, I LOVED "Where'd You Go, Bernadette." In this new book, the author revisits a lot of the same ground with another scatterbrained and reckless artist, and takes it to a ridiculous level. And this time, the character takes her young child along for the ride, putting him in several precarious situations which completely lost any sympathy I had for her. I'll watch for more by Semple, as I found "Bernadette"to be very original and lots of fun. But this one - not so much.

Today Will Be Different has just the right balance of sarcasm, denial and self-awareness. Maria Semple’s second novel is again set in Seattle, Washington. The main characters of both novels have the same tone, but there are no other similarities.

The characters in Today Will Be Different are complex but not wholly likable. They are intriguing vessels to relay good messages. Eleanor is blind to her own faults but quick to point out other’s weaknesses. Her much maligned husband and family are present only in her flashbacks and musings, so readers get a biased view of them until the zenith of the story. Eleanor’s eventual epiphany reveals some hard truths that made me think of my own middle-aged hard truths. Ms. Semple creates compassion for her characters by making them flawed in seemingly universal aspects.

The book and Eleanor’s day begins with her chanting a mantra about how her day will be different. As she proceeds with the mantra, my anticipation that she would fail miserably grew. I loved the mantra and its call for positive change. That mantra creates so many possibilities in the story set up, and it gives great insight into the main character and narrator. Eleanor’s day does turn out to be incredibly different, and it leads to great introspection as well as some zany chases and bizarre scenes.

"Everything I'd set out to achieve in this lifetime, I'd done, with grace to spare. Except loving well the people I loved most"

Ms. Semple depicts marriage, family, and mid-life crises with witty humor and tenderness. Today Will Be Different is an entertaining and altogether relatable story. Whom amongst us is able to say our life turned out perfect and exactly as planned and that we are the faultless paragons of virtue we believe ourselves to be? The heavy hitting messages about family, marriage and turning a new leaf are balanced by the snarky humor and peculiar coincidences.

Interesting story layout, quirky yet relatable characters, and an unexpected twist make Today Will Be Different a highly enjoyable and humorous book.

I loved Maria Semple’s best-selling novel, Where’d You Go, Bernadette. So I decided to read here latest release, Today Will Be Different. As with her previous novel, Today Will Be Different was quirky and fun like we’ve come to expect from Semple, but there was also a sadness and seriousness to this story. Although I enjoyed this novel, I felt that storylines weren’t brought to a satisfying conclusion.

Eleanor Flood, an out-of-work illustrator lives in Seattle with her surgeon-husband, Joe, and their elementary aged son, Timby. Life seems pretty perfect, except for maybe Timby’s confused sexual orientation. Yet Flood’s life in this one day is completely out of control, and much of it has to do with decisions that she makes. She also has issues in her past including the death of her mother when Eleanor was only six, leaving her irresponsible, alcoholic, bookie-father to raise Eleanor and her younger sister, Ivy. She has also had a falling out with Ivy, the reason that is not revealed until later in the book. But this book really jumps around. Most of the book is told in Eleanor’s voice, but toward the end we hear from Joe. What happened between Eleanor and Ivy is a bit of a mystery, but it’s one that really isn’t resolved at the end. I just felt there was something missing.

Yet, many of the things that Semple wrote were funny or profound or moving. Toward the end of the book, Eleanor observes that “Everything 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.” I’m sure that statement applies to many people. I laughed at her comment about how Eleanor traded her “good brain” for motherhood. She talks about how when having a conversation with someone, Eleanor can’t come up with a word. “And it’s not even a ten-dollar word you’re after, like polemic or shibboleth, but a two-dollar word, like distinctive, so you just end up saying amazing? Which is how you join the gang of nitwits who describe everything as amazing.” .

I think that Maria Semple is a good author, but I think that Today Will Be Different needed just a bit more.

Eleanor wakes up with the resolution that today will indeed be different. She will be a better person, a better mother, and a better wife. She will pay more focused attention to her son, Timby. She will have sex with her surgeon husband, Joe. She will go to her poetry and yoga classes. She will wear real clothes. She will pleasantly lunch with a friend she doesn't quite care for. But it doesn't take long for Eleanor's plans to quickly derail, as a series of mishaps rapidly start to add up: Timby is sick, it appears as if Joe is no longer going to work (and lying about it), and Eleanor's lunch date isn't what it seems, either.

I may be the only person left on the planet who hasn't read Where'd You Go, Bernadette (sometimes I'm stubborn about reading "it" books, ok), so I cannot compare this novel to that one. That may be for the best. This is the second novel--in a row--that I contemplated just not finishing, and again, that is so rarely my style. This book felt like a slapdash series of paragraphs thrown together about a crazy woman whose motivations and actions made entirely no sense.

The book veers back and forth in time: while the main action occurs all in one day (the one Eleanor vows will be better), she flashes back to her past, telling the story of her childhood, a long and confusing saga with her sister, Ivy, and Ivy's husband, and how she met her own husband. She also covers her time as working as an animator. It all happens sort of randomly and often in a stream of consciousness. This occurs among the crazy, insane happenings of Eleanor's day, where she sets off a series of bizarre actions that-to me-made no sense and came across as completely irrational. She was not endearing, she was not a little silly: she was just weird and somewhat unhinged, and I'm honestly not sure how she was still allowed to care for poor Timby.

There were a few glimmers about the frustrations of modern motherhood and marriage in this novel, but most were buried by the bizarre ramblings and incoherence of the plot. Some plot pieces were never resolved, some just popped up for no reason, and some dragged on and on endlessly. Maybe I'm just not familiar with Semple's style, but I have to pass on this one.

The midlife crisis, isn’t wonderful fodder for screenwriters and novelists? Treatment can be hilarious or serious, or, as in Maria Semple’s new outing, a blending of both. Eleanor Flood Wallace is about to turn 50. She’s enjoyed a career as an animation director on a successful television show. She’s a woman of many opinions all of which come at the reader regularly, usually coated in humor.

She also has a very precocious little boy named Timby (credit autocorrect for it); he may be the funniest character in the novel. She has a wacky toy pooch, Yo-Yo (which describes Eleanor quite nicely). And she’s married to a very successful hand surgeon, Joe, who, among other things, is on contract with the Seattle Seahawks, and he’s a saint. And, oh yes, she lives in Seattle. Sounds ideal, but there wouldn’t be much of a novel if it were.

When she discovers that Joe’s staff thinks the family is off on vacation, she wonders if Joe’s throwing her over for another woman. Roll out the self-deprecation. Her search for an answer serves as the propulsive drive of the novel, mean to get you from A to B in a zig zag line that wends you through her life. Turns out it was an eventful one, filled with bad parenting, a stage mother, a beautiful sister whom she has a falling out with over the sister’s controlling socialite New Orleans husband, and her own feelings of insecurity and her general daffiness.

All this entertains for the first hundred pages or so, until it turns to tedium and Eleanor’s humorous wackiness disintegrates into something you want to escape. Really, you get tired of her. You think, Good for Joe. Who could deal with this daily?

If you persevere, however, you stagger into a clever ending, for dear Joe is having an affair, of sorts. But it’s with someone and a philosophy both rejected in their youth, and which is one shared thing among many differences. That’s got to, and does, hurt, just like getting there does.

I liked "Where'd You Go Bernadette," but I really, really enjoyed "Today Will Be Different." Semple's writing is light and easy to read. I devoured this book in one day and have thought about its characters several times in the week since finishing it.

“Where’d You Go Bernadette? Taught me to “expect the unexpected” when reading a Maria Semple novel, and “Today Will Be Different” happily confirms that expectation!

I met Maria Semple very briefly in Chicago at the Book Expo of America (BEA) convention. She was absolutely lovely; she took time with each person in line and even LAUGHED when I told her that I keep miss-remembering her last book as: “Where the Hell Are You, Bernadette?” When you can make someone as witty as Maria Semple laugh, that’s a rush!

“Today Will Be Different” is a day in the life of 49 year old, Eleanor Flood, a graphic artist and mother of a young son named Timby (the name is explained). On this day, Eleanor has made several affirmations to herself that this day will be different and that she will be a better mother, wife, and citizen of the world, than she feels she has been. Of course, things don’t go as planned. For one thing, her hand surgeon husband Joe, isn’t where he said he’d be. Eleanor contemplates all the possibilities of where he could be and what he could be up to…but remember – expect the unexpected.

“Today Will Be Different” is also about art, poetry, and family. There is a “book within a book” called, “The Flood Sisters”, beautifully illustrated by Eric Chase Anderson who is the brother of one of my favorite auteurs, Wes Anderson (whose films are made even better by his brother’s art work and set designs). Eleanor is also a student of poetry, and there are several “Easter eggs” for English Majors sprinkled throughout. I urge readers to treat themselves by looking up the artists that are mentioned in the book and their works, photos of the Seattle landmarks visited, and the poems mentioned, to enhance the reading experience of this fun and unique novel.

Oh, the vindication of finishing a library book and hopping on the store to find that most everyone else was left as confused and dissatisfied as you were!

I'm giving this three stars because it was an easy read and it kept my interest until the end - not really in a "this is so intriguing" kind of way, but more in the "where the heck is this all going?" kind of way.

It's hard to get past just how unlikeable the main character is. Eleanor speaks with disdain about pretty much everyone she encounters (the nerve of some people - volunteering at schools! Trying to be friendly! Ugh!) Her self-centeredness is not this endearing, quirky quality the author wants us to believe it is. The way she treats other people (and her poor dog) is genuinely upsetting. She lives a life of privilege that basically allows her to get away with doing whatever horrible thing she wants just because she feels like it, and then we're expected to root for her? She is constantly walking away from things she doesn't want to deal with, whether it's leaving a cart of groceries at Costco because she doesn't want to wait in line or leaving her kid with a virtual stranger because she wants to do something and he would be in her way. (Let's not forget that the whole reason she even has him is because **MINOR SPOILER** he was sent home from school due to a recurring stomachache and the pediatrician said he was having stress issues and needed a day with his mom. Whatever, kid. Mom has her own stuff going on and doesn't have time for your anxiety issues today.**END SPOILER**) This book is supposed to take place over the course of one day, and the amount of people she used over the course of 24 hours and then blew off when they no longer served her is really appalling. I feel like the backstory of her difficult childhood is supposed to make us feel more sympathy for her, but honestly, it just made me more sympathetic to the other people in her life who had to deal with her. I found it so perplexing that she spent a large portion of the book trying to get to the bottom of what was going on with her husband and vowing to do whatever it took to fix their marriage, and then when she finally finds out (and it was not as bad as - though perhaps weirder than - she feared), she still causes a giant scene, makes it all about her, and screams nasty, unsupportive things to her husband. None of that ever comes back on her, of course (aside from a little tangle with security.) That's just Eleanor being Eleanor. Life goes on. Tomorrow will be different? Probably not because, surprise, most people don't undergo significant character development in one day.

So, this book may have held my interest until the end, but I wasn't very satisfied when I got there. After reading the last page I literally thought, "Um...what?" I feel like this book set up several storylines and maybe wrapped up...one? And that one was pretty unfulfilling.

I don't recommend this one unless you need a quick read to pad your summer reading list for the library, which is exactly what this book is doing for me.

I dunno... I really wanted to like this book because I really liked the story and the writing style of "Where'd You Go Bernadette?" But this book was hard for me to get into because I found the writing to be confusing. The narrator's thought process was bouncy and hard to follow. She was all over the place. One confusing thing for me was that the story was told in first person, but then a few chapters in, out of nowhere, there was a chapter narrated by Daniel Clowes. I didn't realize that there had been a shift in narrators until the end of the chapter, and I was all confused, so I had to go back and read it over again.

Also, I thought the ending was so weird! It came out of nowhere, and had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the book. It didn't make any sense that the one seemingly reasonable character in the book would make such an impulsive decision out of the blue.

Still, I didn't totally hate this book. There were some nice character descriptions and good stories mixed into the plot. I loved the Bucky and Ivy part of the story, and I would totally read a whole book about those two.

Enjoyed this quirky and relatable tale of being middle-aged. Semple does a nice e job with following one character's actions and thoughts throughout a day without being overly sentimental. Humor is well used as always in her books.

I always enjoy her writing, although this is not my favorite. That would be “Where’d you go, Bernadette?” -- I loved that one and could read it over and over. She must have inherited her talent from Lorenzo!

I loved “Where Did You Go Bernadette” by Maria Semple, so when I saw that Today Will Be Different was going to be made into a movie and had glowing reviews, it seemed like a no-brainer.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed. I didn’t hate the book, it wasn’t awful, it just didn’t have the same spark and humor as the other book. Perhaps I came at it with too high of expectations.

It’s been about two weeks since I finished the book, and I honestly cannot remember one thing about it. Even when re-reading the blurb on it, nothing is ringing a bell. That is always a bad sign. When I enjoy a book, bits of it stay with me, nothing of this book is memorable.

Disappointing. I finished "A Man Called Ove" just prior to this and was jarred by the contrast of writing styles, the former having a sense of grace and fluidity which was lacking here. Also hard to like this protagonist who was so scattered...hard to feel sympathy. I did "get into" the part about her relationship with her sister, but that was only part of the plot...as important as it was. I also found the resolution of her difficulty in her marriage disappointing.

Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple was an fun and interesting book to listen to on Audio Recording.... The narrator was able to make many different voices (although some where a bit annoying - like Timby's) to make the story line very interesting to listen to.

Although, at first, it was not very clear what the time span of the novel was, by the end, you realize it was only one day.... It was really interesting to be able to fully understand that the entire novel was, "a day in the life of..." and the struggles that we as humans face every day. I did wish for a bit more details, information, and resolution on various subjects but I can accept the fact that this is just part of life - having incomplete stories.

Over all it was a good book with well developed characters and a reasonably well developed plot.

This book is definitely NOT for children - adults only please! There are some explicit content as it pertains to older married couples and their relationships.

Enjoy and Happy Reading!

As I walked into the bookstore-sponsored meet and greet to celebrate Maria Semple’s follow-up to her awesome modern masterpiece, WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE, the Bible for all former artists turned work-at-home moms, I recognized her right away. Actually, I thought she was someone I already knew. She had on a rumpled black pantsuit and a white button-down shirt, open at the neck. Her hair had decided to move in several directions at once, a beguiling lock posited over her searching eyes. Oh, I realized, she is someone I know. She is Bernadette. Maria Semple is Bernadette. Art has become reality, and vice versa.

As I sipped at my strident Mr. Magoo cocktail, I considered how much Semple might be like Eleanor Flood in her new book, TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT, which shouts into the comic void of her universe. How can an otherwise successful and talented mother survive without all the trappings that fall away when you decide to focus on your kid or marriage, or take care of a parent and walk away from the American dream? What happens when you think about getting back in, but no one is waiting at the gate?

Eleanor has had it. She is done with all the things she has given up to become a disposable American mother --- a little flighty, a bit loopy, arguing about what is appropriate snackage at an elementary school Halloween party, trying to decipher what it means when her doctor-to-the-stars husband sits at the breakfast nook, arms splayed out to his sides, his forehead planted on the tabletop, trying to determine if her eight-year-old son Timby might be gay. When Timby feigns illness at school in order to spend a day with his mom, Eleanor discovers the double life that everyone, including herself, has been living --- the friend, a poet, who has a minimum-wage job beyond his grand ambitions; the husband, a doctor who has discovered something missing from his life…and it’s not another woman. There is no one in Semple’s universe who isn’t searching for a new beginning, who isn’t privy to the first world problems of self-identification when it seems as though life needs more than just a basic shake-up.

Unexpectedly, a forgotten lunch appointment turns into an encounter with a former colleague that brings up a long-repressed situation in Eleanor’s life and starts the avalanche of emotional baggage that she and so many around her have tried to shove in a closet and forget about as they moved bravely into middle age. Going back and forth in time, Eleanor fills in the many puzzle pieces that make up her life as it stands --- and offers a glimpse into how going back into the past can propel her forward into the future with all the lights on, her dreams reinvigorated, her real self pushing up from the dead plant that her present life has become. Like the end of CARRIE, Eleanor’s realizations ensure that today will be different --- and her tomorrows, too.

It is with utter adoration and also jealousy that I recommend TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT to my fellow readers and friends, the same way that I recommended WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE to everyone who would listen, reading and rereading it at a pace I had only ever reserved for FRANNY AND ZOOEY, MADAME BOVARY and BELOVED. Semple’s work is deceptively comic and fast-paced and, in this volume, filled with a graphic novel that will stand as testament to the most important part of her past life. The stories are multilayered, and, although these are well-educated women who have had the great joy in life to be artistic successes on a profound and global cultural level (an experience Semple deservedly enjoyed in her pre-novelist life), there are few readers who won’t find the pathos and struggle of her journey towards her new and really authentic self genuine and heartfelt.

Semple is special, a special writer who writes for women and about a woman’s experience in a way that readers of any gender or lifestyle could find an avatar. TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT will find a wide audience of new devoted fans who will respond to her humor and profundity with equal measure. When I asked her if she was already at work on another book, she looked at me and said, “I need a little time to catch my breath.” Although I was saddened that she hadn’t been born with the ability of a Joyce Carol Oates, who can give us three novels in a year’s time, I knew that the only thing to do with such a special talent is to let it both run and rest, so that each book would arrive with its originality intact and delight us the same way her last two novels have.

Today will be different. That’s because you will read TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT, and it will change your life…or at least how you think about what your life can be. After you finish laughing, start at the beginning again while giving copies to everyone you know and love (or who you think need to realize that they must have this book). So I will leave you now, going back in to read TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT for a third time already, and pray that you will do the same. This holiday season, buy a copy for everyone over the age of 40 who is trying to reach a new base camp in their life’s climb; they will thank you for that over and over and over again for years to come.

Lastly, Maria, thanks for TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT. You are a welcome voice in the pantheon of self-help. And yes, it feels like you’re talking just to me, but I know you’re talking to everyone else as well. That’s how you become an iconic writer, and I think you have already earned your perch. So take your rest, but please don’t let it last too long. I know I’ll use your work as signposts for my next 50 years of life, as will all your readers.

Reviewed by Jana Siciliano

I have been recommending this book to all my friends. A woman's life falls apart and comes back together in the span of one day. The past. present and future all collide. The writing is crisp and clear .... very accessible. I read it is two sittings.

I really have fun reading Maria Semple's novels. They are the ramblings of an overloaded mind which in today's society any one of us can relate to. This book is just the day in the life of an over worked mom. Sometimes our minds have a will of their own...

Same misanthropic snarkiness I loved from "Where'd You Go, Bernadette", but the main characters and plot weren't nearly as interesting. A fun, quick read with some good comedic moments, but too much self-absorption and plain ditziness this time around. Veered a bit too chick-lit for me.

I cannot say enough about how great this book is. It's gorgeously written. Its prose blows me away over and over. It's smart. It's funny. It is perfectly timely. It is also different than anything else you're reading in the very best way. I love that in the middle I'm suddenly with different characters in a different setting in a different voice. I love that the author ties it all up again at the end just when I think it'll be impossible to knit back together. It's pithy and heartfelt and perfect. I loved it!

Disliked self-centered, shallow main character who often is not nice to her own child, whom she stupidly (in my opinion) named Timby after a spell check of Timothy. Chapters about her relationship with estranged sister somewhat better. Won’t read anything else from this author.

I really enjoyed this book. Very funny, yet very real and at times, very sad. The characters were extremely well-developed, and unshakably lovable! I would love to be Elinor’s friend, though of course I might then turn into a symptom myself.