Today Will Be Different
Ratings32
Average rating3.2
15
Ratings32
Average rating3.2
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. A hilarious, heart-filled story about reinvention, sisterhood, and how sometimes it takes facing up to our former selves to truly begin living.
Reviews with the most likes.
wow racist, homophobic, sexist and an abusive parent? pick a struggle, maria semple
edit: i highly recommend reading this fantastic review for a breakdown on just why this was so awful
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1846350494?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
I absolutely tore through this book, that's how much I enjoyed it. I loved Where'd You Go, Bernadette, and was concerned that I'd be disappointed by Today Will Be Different based on some of the reviews. But I'm so happy I gave this book a try. In my opinion, it felt very different from WYGB, and I enjoyed reading from Eleanor's perspective, even when things got really wild.
Let me start by saying that I devoured this book in one day. That is always a good sign.
The narrative shift partway through was a complete shock: we start with a not-too-serious story about a wealthy neurotic mother having a “rough” time, and then switch to a story of deeply bonded sisters whose relationship is destroyed over time in sharp acidic bursts. The emotions in this portion were so horribly sharp I had to stop reading and reach out to my own sister to tell her how much I love her (a sort of superstitious assurance that this story will never be us, never).
So then the book is moving back and forth between the plot of the sisters (the past) and the plot of the older-sister-turned-neurotic-mother (present). And here's where it gets complicated, since the former is so compelling and real and the latter is.... not. I mean, the older sister/mother just goes bonkers. It's been set up in the early pages that she gets away with acting like an asshole, but this is unbelievable. I think that it may have worked if things were slowed down, if she did these things over several weeks instead of in one day, and if more information was given to explain her behavior. As far as I can tell the only explanation for the present-day plot line is “My sister and I no longer have a relationship and the pain of it is making me selfish and a little nuts”. When I finished the book I had the strong feeling that the author had simply run out of time.
In summary, this starts as a good book, bursts into a great book, and then fizzles back into a book that is pretty good (but could have been great).
It was a quick easy read with the same humor I enjoyed in “Where'd you go Bernadette?” but I didn't enjoy this book as much as that one.
