Monday, February 27, 2017

Today Will be Different by Maria Semple

At first I found this book a little bit weird, but after the first few chapters I was hooked - or at least hooked enough to be quite curious about what the protagonist, Eleanor Flood, was hiding.

Eleanor wakes up one morning and decides it's time to become a better version of herself - so she dresses well, does her hear and make up and vows to be more attentive to her son and husband.  She also resigns herself to keep a lunch date with a friend who she doesn't really like.

But everything is thrown into turmoil when her son feigns sickness to spend the day with her, her husband is has mysteriously told his office he was on vacation, but not his family and her lunch date is not with her long time friend but with a person from her past who dredges up painful memories in front of her son.

The rest of the book deals with Eleanor's efforts to find out what's up with her husband as well as alternating chapters which tell us the difficulties of Eleanor's childhood and the trauma she has been trying to hide from her son (and herself).

The writing style is very odd - first person perspective from a weird character, but in the end I did enjoy the story and sympathized with Eleanor's issues.

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