Today Will Be Different

The joy, as before, is in the narrative voice... Brilliant set-pieces include a scene of existential despair in CostCo, a flashback to a hideous society wedding in the deep south, and Dr Joe's epiphany during a Seattle Seahawks game.. Semple reaffirms her gift for creating memorable, monstrous characters * THE GUARDIAN * This whip-smart, bleakly humorous study of how we live now is full of finely drawn characters and deserves to widen her fanbase. * SUNDAY TIMES * It's funny and silly but also poignant and more than a little reminiscent of Semple's bestselling Where'd You Go, Bernadette * MAIL ON SUNDAY * There are some good lines and more than a few laughs, plus occasional pungent observations on life * DAILY MAIL * With its sparky gags and quirky cast of characters, never has a meltdown been so entertaining * GLAMOUR * One to Watch: Where'd You Go, Bernadette established Maria Semple as a brilliant comic writer. Today Will Be Different, about a middle-aged mum who is desperately trying to keep control of her life despite having one of those days, is just as smart, funny and original. * GOOD HOUSEKEEPING * sees Semple once again writing about a difficult woman with gleeful empathy and humour that can turn on a knife edge to heartbreak * RED * Whipsmart, dazzling, darkly comic and deeply touching. I loved it! -- Marian Keyes I adore it. Every bit as smart - and smart-arsed - as BERNADETTE . . . this is wonderful -- Sam Baker, author of THE WOMAN WHO RAN and co-founder of THE POOL So unique, so smart, so funny, so beautifully humane, so utterly of our times, it's astonishing -- Gillian Flynn, author of GONE GIRL I love Maria Semple! TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT is just as funny, poignant, and life-affirming as BERNADETTE -- Nina Stibbe, author of LOVE, NINA and MAN AT THE HELM 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 Clever, funny and silly * PSYCHOLOGIES * This waspishness selfishness is a clever mask, but Semple has a knack of teasing out the warmth behind it. * FINANCIAL TIMES * an entertaining book to while away a few hours. * SUNDAY EXPRESS * her narrative oozes stylistic originality * i NEWSPAPER * Captivating, right up to the final twist. * GRAZIA * this witty novel is a life-affirming read. * CLOSER * 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 * 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 * 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 * 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

Maria Semple spent fifteen years in Los Angeles as a television writer, working on hit shows including ELLEN, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, MAD ABOUT YOU and ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT. Her second novel, WHERE'D YOU GO, BERNADETTE, was an international bestseller and was shortlisted for the 2013 Women's Prize for Fiction and won the 2013 Melissa Nathan Award. Maria lives in Seattle. www.mariasemple.com