Eleanor knows she's disorganized (and that's putting it nicely), but today, she vows, it will be different. Today, she'll tackle the little things. She won't swear. She will follow up on yoga lessons.
However, today is the day her son, Timby, has chosen to fake sick to leave school and spend the day in his mother's company. It's also the day that Eleanor discovers that her husband has been telling his office (but not Eleanor) that he's on vacation. What else could happen? Actually, quite a lot.
I enjoyed the author's previous book, Where'd You Go, Bernadette, so I had been hoping to enjoy this one, as well. It started out well enough, although part-way through, I started getting really annoyed with Eleanor. Annoyed enough that I thought about closing the book and returning it to the library. However, I stuck with it, and then, all of a sudden, it seemed like everything changed. Once you get to a certain point in the story, you learn more about Eleanor's background, and, especially, her relationship with her family. Things about Eleanor start to make a little more sense, and although she's still scattered (and kind of annoying), I had more insight, and thus more compassion.
There are a lot of things that this book has in common with the author's previous book, and there was a definite sense of deja vu for me. I also didn't find the book as funny as the previous book, and chalked that up to how I found the main character in this story to be frustrating and annoying. While I wouldn't mind reading another book from Maria Semple, I'm hoping that her next effort will be different from this book and her previous book. This was an enjoyable enough read on a gloomy day, but I won't be buying it to read over and over again.
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