Delightful ( )

Bridget is a "Singleton" living in London and employed in the publishing industry. It's her diary, complete with daily entries of calories consumed, cigarettes smoked, "alcohol units" imbibed and other unsuitable obsessions, of a year in the life of a bright London 30-something who deplores male "fuckwittage" while pining for a steady boyfriend that ultimately gives life to this novel.

"Fuckwittage" seems to sum up Bridget's roller coaster life, encapsulated in the emotional turmoil intentionally wreaked by men who fall anywhere along the spectrum of womanizers to commitment-phobics. Fuckwittage is no stranger to Bridget, Shazzer (a strident feminist), Jude (a highly successful business woman who throughout the novel is on-again-off-again with Vile Richard), and the gay Tom (who must deal with the fuckwittage present in his relationship with Pretentious Jerome).

There are a lot of laugh out loud moments, from Bridget's list of "I Will Not" as part of her New Year's Resolution, to her determination of cultivating "inner poise", endorsing the idea that resultions should sensibly start on January 2, comparing a woman's date-preparation and being a woman in general to be akin to being a farmer ("there is so much harvesting and crop spraying to be done" e.g. legs to be waxed, skin exfoliated and moisturized), to rallying on Singletons.
"I'm not married because I'm a Singleton, you smug, prematurely aging, narrow-minded morons. We'd be as happy as larks if people like you didn't conspire to make us feel stupid just because you're jealous."

What irks me about this book is the flawed character of her mother. Bridget's parents consists of an overbearing, overconfident mother who seems always to be finding new adventures and projects and who thinks she could just gloss over life's setbacks; and a much more down-to-earth father (though he is sometimes driven into uncharacteristically unstable states of mind by his wife). Nobody can blame him, especially when his wife turned into a criminal just because she can't exert self-control on her extramarital affairs. Overall, I had high hopes for this book, which made chick lit so popular but it proved unable to meet my expectations.

Book Details:

Title Bridget Jones's Diary
Author Helen Fielding
Reviewed By Purplycookie ( )

Bridget Jones was somewha annoying and unsympathetic in the first book, and while I expected it to be much the same in the sequel, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Bridget, while still bumbling and frighteningly clueless, is more interesting in this story.

She continues to be weight-obsessed and more than a little bit paranoid, but her antics seem to be a bit more realistic in spots in this one than in the first book. I really believe this falls into a very small category of stories where the second book was more enjoyable than the first. ( )

Hysterical! A quick and fun read that many girls and women can relate to on some level. ( )

Somehow I missed that this was actually a book, written as a diary; I formerly was only aware of it as a movie. I saw the movie years ago, probably not long after it was released. I watched the movie again fall of 2008, even saw the sequel.

First time through the film I know I understood very little of what was said. Last year when I watched it I understood almost all of it, having lived here for a year.

I only decided to read the book because I saw it on a list of 'Have you read' books recently. Really, I am still not sure how it became a part of the list. There was nothing especially special about the book. It appears to follow along much as the movie did. Of course I am going to have to rewatch the movie at some point, I guess, to determine if I am recalling that correctly. While it wasn't a life-changing book for me to read I will probalby also read the sequel so that I can say that I read both books and saw both films. ( )