I love love loved Where’d You Go, Bernadette. I reviewed it back at the beginning of the year and my opinion stands – Maria Semple’s writing is just addicting. Today Will Be Different takes place over a smaller timeframe and doesn’t have quite the same stage presence as the other novel, but damn is it hard to put down. Y’all, I finished this in hours. It does feel a lot like Bernadette, it’s like the second verse in the same song. Eleanor is a bundle of quirks […]
Fortunately Gone, I Wait for You
Where’d You Go, Bernadette is a perfectly fine book. I think a lot of people like it a lot. It’s the story of Bee, a teenager in Seattle, whose mother Bernadette disappears one day. Most of the book covers what leads up to her disappearance, while the end talks about the aftermath and the efforts to find her. I found this book quite engaging and finished it in just a few days. I liked the format (it’s mainly a series of emails sent between different […]
Utterly addicting
I blew through this book in less than a day (a WORK DAY) because oh my god I could not put it down. It is addicting, like, Big Little Lies addicting, in the good way. They’re making this into a movie with Cate Blanchett in the lead and oh. my. god. I cannot wait. This is another one where the premise sounds utterly inane. The titular Bernadette is a woman with high anxiety (along with a host of other issues), living in suburban Seattle with her […]
Where’d You Go, Bernadette? is a Question I Didn’t Really Need Answered
Bee, Bernadette, and Elgin are three idiosyncratically named family members of a very idiosyncratic family. Bee is arguably precocious, arguably angsty, certainly adolescent, and well beyond her years. She’s a brilliant child with a bright future and a good heart. Elgin is incredibly busy, rather aloof, and growing more and more tired of his wife. But he’s brilliant, and behind Samantha 2, one of the most hyped (fictional) Microsoft products that allows you to control robots with your brain. Bernadette is agoraphobic, misanthropic, neurotic, but […]
I’m beginning to fear Maria Semple was a One Hit Wonder
I loved Semple’s Where’d You Go Bernadette but was disappointed by This One is Mine; My feelings for Semple’s third novel, Today Will Be Different, falls squarely in the middle. “Today will be different. Today I will be present. Today, anyone I speak 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 change into yoga clothes only for […]
Where’d You Go, Maria Semple
The more I think about this book the less I like it. Today Will Be Different is the story of a single day in the life of Eleanor Flood. Eleanor is trying to be the best version of herself. She has plans to make this day perfect. She is going to be present. She is going to be a better mom, a better wife, a better friend. Eleanor is not a bad person, she’s just a bit of a mess. But her plan begins to […]