Today Will Be Different

July 11, 2016
On the fateful day she decides to be her “best self,” Eleanor Flood—cult-famous cartoonist, mother, wife, cynic—spirals from one catastrophe to the next. Her day quickly turns hectic when her son, Timby, comes home sick from school. Hoping his father might help, Eleanor instead begins to suspect her surgeon husband is having an affair when his receptionist acts cagey. Eleanor’s ego is bruised when she realizes an underling she fired years ago is now a famous artist, she dodges calls from her publisher about a long-passed deadline for her graphic memoir, and, finally, she suffers what may be a concussion after crashing headfirst into a sculpture. The latest from Semple (Where’d You Go, Bernadette?) is a sharp, funny read, and the author injects quirky elements—drawings, a comic book, photocopies of poems—to add another layer of enjoyment. Though Eleanor is snarky, her troubles and growing calamities are engaging. Some of her encounters are a bit too convenient, and the trope of a “day from hell” makes for shallow interactions between characters, but Semple augments these first-person antics with third-person sections that dig deep into Eleanor’s past, finding particular resonance when telling the story of Ivy, the sister Eleanor feels she has lost to a wealthy husband in New Orleans. In the end, the novel wraps up too neatly, but the ride is consistently entertaining. Agent: Anna Stein, ICM Partners.

Starred review from July 1, 2016
A day in the life of an enchanting and gifted woman who is almost too frazzled to go on.The women on the verge of a nervous breakdown, the mad housewives, and the Annie Halls can welcome a new member to their club: Eleanor Flood, the narrator of Semple's (Where'd You Go Bernadette, 2012, etc.) second sendup of Seattle and its denizens. Eleanor, formerly a New Yorker and the animator of a popular cartoon about four girls in " '60's style pinafores" misdirecting "their unconscious fear of puberty into a random hatred of hippies, owners of pure-bred dogs and babies named Steve," lives in Seattle with her sweet Seahawks doctor husband and her precocious, makeup-wearing third-grade son. Timby goes to Galer Street School, an ultra-PC environ familiar to Bernadette fans, where Eleanor imagines his arrival was greeted with delighted cries of "Eureka! We've got a transgender!" This book is so packed with interesting characters and situations, it could have been three times as long. You want more New Orleans Garden District (where Eleanor's sister has been kidnapped by an effete Mardi Gras krewe captain), more New York animation studio, more poignant childhood stories (dead actress mother and alcoholic father, illustrated in a beautiful color insert), more annotated poems ("Skunk Hour," by Robert Lowell). Only one thing you don't want more of--a weird plotline about husband Joe's secret life. As Eleanor tells Timby when they visit a public art installation, "I don't mean to ruin the ending for you, sweet child, 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." Ah, Eleanor. You could have stopped at glamorous and personal. Because few will be indifferent to this achingly funny and very dear book. This author is on her way to becoming a national treasure.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2016
Semple returns to ground she covered in Where'd You Go, Bernadette? (2012), with an artistic antiheroine fumbling through her life of privilege as an NYC transplant to Seattle. Married to a celebrity hand doctor and 10 years separated from her career as a groundbreaking animator, Eleanor Flood spends her days studying poetry with an untenured professor and thinking acerbic thoughts about the other moms at her precocious son's private school. Having lunch with a former minion breaks something free in Eleanor's past, and her life falls apart over the course of an afternoon. Readers learn details of her backstory and will sympathize despite the seemingly trivial nature of her troubles (Sticking her foot in her mouth with her poetry teacher! Estrangement from her sister! Her husband's absence from his practice! Her son's enjoyment of makeup!). 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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

May 15, 2016

Start the day bright and early. Organize son Timby for school. Get to those yoga and poetry classes. Ditch the bad language. Become passionate again with husband Joe. Eleanor has just hatched a small-step plan for polishing up her life, but it's blown to smithereens when Timby wangles a day off from school and Joe tells the office--but not Eleanor--that he's on vacation. Now she's in for some big changes. Semple's Where'd You Go, Bernadette, slated for the big screen, has sold over a million copies across formats and was a New York Times Best Book. With a 200,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2016

Narrated by irreverent Eleanor Flood, a self-described "past her prime animator" who achieved fleeting fame, Semple's latest novel following the best-selling Where'd You Go, Bernadette features the author's trademark satire. After relocating from New York to Seattle, Eleanor's erratic life consists of shuttling son Timby, lunches with friends she can't stand, poetry lessons with tutor Alonzo, and thinking about revitalizing her marriage to Joe. That is, until an old friend mentions Eleanor's estranged sister, Ivy. Interweaving chapters provide flashbacks to Eleanor and Ivy's difficult childhood after the death of their mother and years with an emotionally distant, alcoholic father. Semple acutely captures the complexities of sibling relationships when describing Ivy's hurried marriage to overbearing scion Bucky Willett, the series of events that led to the sisters' estrangement, and their failed efforts to reconnect. Present-day chapters focus on Timby faking his way out of school and Joe's unexplained absences at work, causing Eleanor's paranoia and insecurities to get the best of her. VERDICT An introspective look, both comedic and tragic, at attempting to be the best one can be: wife, mother, or sibling. While not as laugh-out-loud funny as Where'd You Go, this book will satisfy fans of Semple and satire. [See Prepub Alert, 4/18/16.]--Stephanie Sendaula, Library Journal

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.