Tuesday 28 February 2017

Today Will be Different by Maria Semple, narrated by Kathleen Wilhoite (Contemporary, Audiobook, 8/10E, unfinished)

Eleanor really wants life to be different!
September 2016, Orion, 6 hours 28 minutes, Audiobook, Review copy

Content: strong language, adult relations,
 
Book summary from Hachette Audio
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.

Nayu's thoughts 
Initially I wasn't keen on Eleanor, but I was intrigued by the summary so I kept going. It bothered me how she treated her son. He was fed, had clothes, and the essentials taken care of, but the connection between them didn't feel amazing. So I thought over the book her feelings would improve as the story progressed. They did to a certain extent, and I'm sure they would have carried on but the story veered  off for what seemed like age to the memoir (I think). I couldn't understand what they had to do with  Eleanor (I hadn't remembered the blurb...) I kept waiting for the viewpoint to switch back to her, but it didn't and I had no interest in the characters so I stopped listening.

Audiobooks are harder to fast forward, whereas with a physical or ebook version I could have sen where to skip ahead to get past the part that didn't catch my interest. I really did want to keep going but I couldn't face it. The story itself is well written, I loved Timby and felt sorry for him as he didn't get his mother's attention as much as he liked. The narration was spot on, seamlessly changing character voices. I do recommend checking this out, I will read the ebook version at some point just to know what happened at the end!

Find out more on Maria's website.

 Suggested read

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