40 pages • 1 hour read
Today Will Be Different
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary and Study Guide
Overview
Today Will Be Different is a humorous realistic fiction novel written by American author Maria Semple and published by Little, Brown and Company in 2016. The novel takes place over one day and follows Eleanor Flood, an animator and aspiring graphic novelist in Seattle, whose plan to make better decisions and improve her personal life goes awry when her husband disappears, her son falls ill, and a lunch meeting with an old coworker forces her to come to terms with her past, including the dissolution of her relationship with her beloved sister. The novel explores the themes of The Tension Between the Self and Family, The Gap Between Who One Is and Who One Wishes to Be, and The Function of Family in Healing and Growth. Semple previously wrote the 2012 novel Where’d You Go, Bernadette, which shares many of the same themes and narrative elements and was adapted into a film of the same name starring Cate Blanchett in 2019.
This guide refers to the 2016 NOOK e-book edition.
Content Warning: The novel contains references to domestic abuse, alcohol and drug addiction, child neglect, body shaming, eating disorders, racism perpetuated by the Unlock all 40 pages of this Study Guide Plus, gain access to 8,900+ more expert-written Study Guides. Including features:
