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 <i>The Corrections</i>, the best episides of <i>Bob's Burgers</i>, and the private journal of the smartest, most irritable woman you know, <i>Today Will Be Different</i> 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. <i>Today Will Be Different</i> 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 <i>Where'd You Go, Bernadette</i> 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

A little bit wacky and always wise, and we recognize people we know - including ourselves - on every page

- Elisabeth Egan, Glamour

Outrageously funny. But [<i>Today Will Be Different</i>] cuts closer to the bone than <i>Bernadette</i> 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

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

Deliciously mucky mayhem

San Francisco Chronicle

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

Quirky and blade-sharp

- Tina Jordan and Isabella Biedenharn, Entertainment Weekly

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

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

Crackling with honesty and heart

- Jarry Lee, BuzzFeed

<i>Today Will Be Different</i> 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

Fans of <i>Bernadette </i>will recognize Semple's propulsive and satirical dialogue

- Trine Tsouderos, Chicago Tribune

<i>Today Will Be Different</i> 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,

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 BRIEF ENCOUNTERS WITH CHE GUEVARA,

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