Today Will Be Different: From the bestselling author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette - Couverture souple

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)

Eleanor Flood knows she's a mess. But today will be different. Today she will shower and put on real clothes. She will attend her yoga class after dropping her son, Timby, off at school. She'll see an old friend for lunch. She won't swear. She will initiate sex with her husband, Joe. But before she can put her modest plan into action - life happens.

For today is the day Timby has decided to pretend to be ill to weasel his way into his mother's company. It's also the day surgeon Joe has chosen to tell his receptionist - but not Eleanor - that he's on vacation. And just when it seems that things can't go more awry, a former colleague produces a relic from the past - a graphic memoir with pages telling of family secrets long buried and a sister to whom Eleanor never speaks.