Today Will Be Different Lib/E
Maria Semple
(Author)
Kathleen Wilhoite
(Read by)
Description
*In development with HBO as a series starring Julia Roberts* * 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 2016A 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 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.Product Details
Price
$90.00
Publisher
Little Brown and Company
Publish Date
October 04, 2016
Dimensions
6.4 X 1.2 X 6.1 inches | 0.65 pounds
Language
English
Type
Compact Disc
EAN/UPC
9781478942306
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About the Author
Maria Semple is the author of This One Is Mine, Today Will Be Different, and the New York Times bestseller Where'd You Go, Bernadette? Before turning to fiction, she wrote for Mad About You, Ellen, and Arrested Development. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker.
Kathleen Wilhoite, an Earphones Award-winning narrator, is a film and television actress, as well as a singer-songwriter. She is known for her roles in the films Witchboard, Murphy's Law, Lorenzo's Oil, and The Edge. She is also known for her recurring roles on ER and Gilmore Girls, and for voicing the title character in the animated series Pepper Ann.
Reviews
Think Modern Family meets 24.-- "The Skimm"
Filled with all the zany twists and signature humor that made Where'd You Go Bernadette a runaway hit.-- "Liz Loerke, Real Simple"
A comedic whirlwind of lessons about life, family and facing your past.-- "Parade"
[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"
Downright hard to put down.... unrelentingly entertaining, with some nice pathos thrown in the mix.-- "Steph Cha, USA Today (3/4 stars)"
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"
It's the promise of what tomorrow holds for Eleanor that makes her worth getting to know-- "Shannon Carlin, Bust"
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 "
Nothing short of a masterpiece.-- "Sophie Flack, Boston Globe"
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"
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"
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"
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"
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)"
A sharp, funny read.... Consistently entertaining.-- "Publishers Weekly"
An introspective look, both comedic and tragic, at attempting to be the best one can be.-- "Stephanie Sendaula, Library Journal"
Absolutely delicious black comedy.... A witty delight.-- "Yvonne Zipp, Christian Science Monitor"
Humorously depicts the struggle to keep it together.-- "Jamie Blynn, US Weekly"
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"
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"
A quick punch to the funny bone.-- "San Antonio Express-News"
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"
an irresistibly funny portrait of a woman who refuses to give up on love-- "Moira McDonald, Seattle 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"
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"
Warm, funny and seriously good.-- "Daily Kos"
Both hilarious and moving.-- "Terry Gross, NPR's Fresh Air"
There are some glorious moments of social satire.-- "Zoe Apostolides, Financial Times"
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"
Comedic and charming.-- "Leigh Nordstrom, Women's Wear Daily"
[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"
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"
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"
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"
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"
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"
Quirky and blade-sharp.-- "Tina Jordan and Isabella Biedenharn, Entertainment Weekly"
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"
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 "
Written with Semple's hilarity-cum-sincerity, Eleanor grapples with the past to reconcile her future and makes readers smile.-- "Steph Opitz, Marie Claire"
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"
Deliciously mucky mayhem.-- "San Francisco Chronicle"
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"
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"
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"
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"
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 "
A little bit wacky and always wise, and we recognize people we know--including ourselves--on every page.-- "Elisabeth Egan, Glamour"
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"
Crackling with honesty and heart.-- "Jarry Lee, BuzzFeed"
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"
Bittersweet, hilarious, perceptive.-- "The Millions"
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"
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"
Hilarious [and] heart-warming.-- "Dana Getz, Entertainment Weekly"
TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT is going to delight the many, many fans of Where'd You Go, Bernadette.-- "Michael Merschel, Dallas Morning News"
Fans of Bernadette will recognize Semple's propulsive and satirical dialogue.-- "Trine Tsouderos, Chicago Tribune"
Equal parts smart and funny.-- "Jenny Comita, W"
Whipsmart, dazzling, darkly comic and deeply touching. I loved it!-- "Marian Keyes, author of The Brightest Star in the Sky and This Charming Man"
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 "
Hilarious and smart.-- "Claire Stern, InStyle"
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"
A second dose of [Semple's] madcap genius.-- "Tiffany Blackstone, Redbook"
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"
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"
Filled with all the zany twists and signature humor that made Where'd You Go Bernadette a runaway hit.-- "Liz Loerke, Real Simple"
A comedic whirlwind of lessons about life, family and facing your past.-- "Parade"
[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"
Downright hard to put down.... unrelentingly entertaining, with some nice pathos thrown in the mix.-- "Steph Cha, USA Today (3/4 stars)"
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"
It's the promise of what tomorrow holds for Eleanor that makes her worth getting to know-- "Shannon Carlin, Bust"
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 "
Nothing short of a masterpiece.-- "Sophie Flack, Boston Globe"
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"
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"
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"
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"
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)"
A sharp, funny read.... Consistently entertaining.-- "Publishers Weekly"
An introspective look, both comedic and tragic, at attempting to be the best one can be.-- "Stephanie Sendaula, Library Journal"
Absolutely delicious black comedy.... A witty delight.-- "Yvonne Zipp, Christian Science Monitor"
Humorously depicts the struggle to keep it together.-- "Jamie Blynn, US Weekly"
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"
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"
A quick punch to the funny bone.-- "San Antonio Express-News"
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"
an irresistibly funny portrait of a woman who refuses to give up on love-- "Moira McDonald, Seattle 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"
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"
Warm, funny and seriously good.-- "Daily Kos"
Both hilarious and moving.-- "Terry Gross, NPR's Fresh Air"
There are some glorious moments of social satire.-- "Zoe Apostolides, Financial Times"
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"
Comedic and charming.-- "Leigh Nordstrom, Women's Wear Daily"
[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"
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"
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"
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"
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"
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"
Quirky and blade-sharp.-- "Tina Jordan and Isabella Biedenharn, Entertainment Weekly"
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"
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 "
Written with Semple's hilarity-cum-sincerity, Eleanor grapples with the past to reconcile her future and makes readers smile.-- "Steph Opitz, Marie Claire"
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"
Deliciously mucky mayhem.-- "San Francisco Chronicle"
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"
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"
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"
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"
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 "
A little bit wacky and always wise, and we recognize people we know--including ourselves--on every page.-- "Elisabeth Egan, Glamour"
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"
Crackling with honesty and heart.-- "Jarry Lee, BuzzFeed"
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"
Bittersweet, hilarious, perceptive.-- "The Millions"
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"
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"
Hilarious [and] heart-warming.-- "Dana Getz, Entertainment Weekly"
TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT is going to delight the many, many fans of Where'd You Go, Bernadette.-- "Michael Merschel, Dallas Morning News"
Fans of Bernadette will recognize Semple's propulsive and satirical dialogue.-- "Trine Tsouderos, Chicago Tribune"
Equal parts smart and funny.-- "Jenny Comita, W"
Whipsmart, dazzling, darkly comic and deeply touching. I loved it!-- "Marian Keyes, author of The Brightest Star in the Sky and This Charming Man"
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 "
Hilarious and smart.-- "Claire Stern, InStyle"
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"
A second dose of [Semple's] madcap genius.-- "Tiffany Blackstone, Redbook"
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"
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"
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.
-- "Amazon.com"[A] skillfully rendered re-creation of one day in the life of a modern family.
-- "BookPage"A sharp, funny read...consistently entertaining.
-- "Publishers Weekly"Hilarious and touching...Give this to readers of women's fiction, Seattle denizens and aspiring residents, and people reviewing their lives and choices.
-- "Booklist"
