AUTHOR: Maria Semple
STARTED: May 28, 2017
FINISHED: June 11, 2017
PAGES: 272
GENRE: Fiction
FIRST SENTENCE: Today will be different.
SUMMARY: [From BN] Eleanor knows she's a mess. But today, she will tackle the little things. She will shower and get dressed. She will have her poetry and yoga lessons after dropping off her son, Timby. She won't swear. She will initiate sex with her husband, Joe. But before she can put her modest plan into action-life happens. Today, it turns out, is the day Timby has decided to fake sick to weasel his way into his mother's company. It's also the day Joe has chosen to tell his office-but not Eleanor-that he's on vacation. Just when it seems like things can't go more awry, an encounter with a former colleague produces a graphic memoir whose dramatic tale threatens to reveal a buried family secret.
THOUGHTS: I've held off on reviewing this book because I was still trying to decide if I actually liked it or not. Two weeks later and the best conclusion I can come to is that I like the book but I loathe the main character. The story is well written and paced, but I just could not take to the main character. Even when you're supposed to sympathize with Eleanor, I just wanted to yell at her. To me, she's self-centered, dense, and grating. If I met Eleanor in real life, she would be that person I avoid like the plague. My dislike of her overwhelms the rest of the book. The story is fine and I enjoy how the authored structured it as flashbacks set in one day of recall, but again with the character. She just drove me batty.
Ugh!
RATING: 6/10 [Good]
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