Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

This is my favourite of the three Bridget Jones books. This book made me entirely happy to read and had a fantastic plot line.

Her experience on shrooms--just yes. Because it's completely normal to go to Thailand and have a shroom omelette. Just yes. All my yeses. Her thoughts afterwards and Shazz's description of how she acted were just all so hilariously accurate.

Also, the fact that she lets Gary the builder make a hole in her apartment and just leave it for a few weeks? So great. She's so gullible and it's absolutely endearing. And there was that time she was crawling in the dumpster in underwear and a jacket. And then her ex shows up. And then her other ex shows up.

I'm generally not much of a fan of diary type books that try to show more tackle complex plots, but Bridget being detained in Thailand for drug trafficking just seemed to fit in all to perfectly. Of all people, this would happen to her.

Mark Darcy is definitely the subtle star of this book and though it may have been a little predictable, I thought their relationship was really well written and had just the right amount of prominence. This is more women's fiction than romance, but romance definitely played a big role.

Bridget's obsession with self-help books isn't something I can relate to at at all but it played another hilarious role and it was intriguing to see the 'lessons' she and her friends thought they learned and how they applied to reality.

Bridget's friend Jude and her significant other, Vile Richard, had an interesting subplot weaving through that provided a really good foil to Bridget's relationship with Mark. Rebecca's character made me angry and made me squirm, because to me Bridget felt like a real friend.

Oh, and even buying condoms is an experience in Bridget Jones's world. I loved this book so much! From its hilarity to its ability to turn the most normal situation odd, this was gold. show less

No. of days this took me to read: Way too many No. of seconds I've spent writing this review: Idk,forgot to count No. of times I've started reviews this way: 0 until now

Sometimes I really wanna shake Bridget by the shoulders and tell her to think straight, go say what you feel, why must you do that, quit it! But in the end, she figures it out for herself without my saying anything at all. Given she's a book character, I don't think she'd listen or hear me to begin with anyway.

The first book was funny, not what I'm used to, but definitely enjoyable. This one was great at first, then I started reading other things and I put it off *(around the time Bridget's man problems started again btw)* and finally got back to it just now to finish show more it off.

Drugdealers, African tribes, weddings....what could possibly go wrong? .....everything.
Everything you never imagined would happen to Bridget Jones, did....
And still, she came back from it, funnier than ever.

I'm thrilled with how this book turned out and I just might read it again. Colin Firth Interview was definitely pleasing. Now I must wait for the rumored 3rd book.....14 years in the making. I'm glad I wasn't one of the first readers or I'd be kinda impatient at this point. show less

I loved Bridget Jones's Diary so much when I read it back in the 90s (before the movie). When Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason was released though, I wasn't interested. I've been burned by low quality sequels in the past and just couldn't stand to read this book and be disappointed. About ten years ago a friend gave me a copy and told me it was pretty good. I didn't want to take the risk and so it sat in my basement without any thought of me ever reading it. In the meantime, the movie version of The Edge of Reason came out and it was the debacle that I expected. Although it was great to see all those lovely characters again, it was just embarrassing watching them try to make a film out of that script. My shunning of this novel was show more justified. Or so I thought.

After my recent reread of [Bridget Jones's Diary] I thought that maybe I should give this a try. Thankfully, it's very different from the film version. Maybe it was my low expectations, but I found it delightful. In some ways I think it was better, in a literary sense, than the original. Bridget shows more character growth by the end, and there is some clever use of the Kipling poem "If". At first I was greatly frustrated by her friends sabatoging of Bridget's relationship with Mark Darcy, but as events unfolded, they redeemed themselves. Sure, Bridget really needs to toss the self help books and actually TALK to Mark (and he to her), but then there wouldn't be a story. And there were lots of laugh out loud moments. Including the scene where Bridget gets to interview Colin Firth (which unfortunately they couldn't possibly put in the movie--but they did film a version of it as an extra. Go to YouTube and search "Bridget Jones interviews Colin Firth").

In the film version, Bridget is uncomfortably cringe inducing, and I can't figure out why Mark sees anything in her whatsoever. In the book version, you see her insecurities and vulnerabilities and also see more of what he is dealing with, and they actually seem like two people that you want to cheer for. As with the first book, Bridget Jones is more relatable than in the film where she's too over the top.

I read 7/8s of this in one sitting, which is almost unheard of for me, and it was a luxury I fully enjoyed.

Recommended for: literary snobs with no sense of humour should stay away from this. show less

At the beginning of Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason, Bridget has been going out with Mark Darcy for four weeks, and she is getting used to being part of a couple. Enters Rebecca, a beautiful, successful and rich colleague of Mark who is determined to steal Bridget’s boyfriend. Seeking advice from her friends and her self-help books, Bridget becomes convinced that Mark has a lot more in common with Rebecca than with her, and she breaks it off with him. To make matters worse, her job is going nowhere thanks to her crazy, erratic boss, a renovation project in her apartment has gone horribly wrong, and her father has become an alcoholic.

While I enjoyed parts of the book, I believe that the Bridget Jones series has lost some of its show more appeal. Is it because I am older than the first time I read it? After all, I am married with one kid, while I was single when I first laid my hands on the books. Or is it because the series hasn’t aged well? And am I the only one who thinks that it was a little creepy that Mark was always lurking around her apartment (when she was babysitting Magda’s kids, or when she was looking for Tom’s cellphone, for example)? Luckily, there are some great comic scenes which redeem the book, such as Bridget’s interview with Colin Firth, or how she passes the time while in a Thailand prison. I wonder if the last book in the series, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, will be better though… I guess there is only one way to find out: I will need to read it.

To read the full review, please go to my blog (Cecile Sune - Book Obsessed). show less

Bridget Jones was somewhat 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.

Alun perin sanomalehden kolumneista kootuun teoksen, "Bridget Jones - elämäni sinkkuna" -teoksen jatko-osa jatkaa Bridgetin elämää tuttuun tyyliin: Bridget Jones pohtii elämäänsä, omaa itseään, syömistään, juomistaan, painoaan, miehiä, ystäviään ja ympäröiviä ihmisiä ja kulttuuria päiväkirjansa sivuilla. Kirjan kerronta on humoristista ja ironisoivaa, eivätkä Bridgetin sattumukset ala kyllästyttämään lukijaa, vaan hän voittaa lukijat puolelleen juuri huumorinsa ja itseironiansa takia. Bridgetin elämään ongelmia muodostuu niin parisuhteesta, sinkkuelämästä, kaameasta pomosta, roistosta remonttimiehestä ketä puhkoo Bridgetin asunnon seinään reiän, kuin lopulta myös reissusta Thaimaaseen. Teos show more sisältää päiväkirjamerkintöjä tammikuusta joulukuuhun vuodelta 1997 ja sisältää niin Bridgetin elämään kuuluvia sattumuksia kuin tosielämässa sattuneita tapahtumia (esim. työväenpuolueen vaalivoitto ja Prinsessa Dianan kuolema). Kirja myös sisältää intertekstuaalisia viittauksia Jane Austenin romaaniin "Viisasteleva sydän". show less

This is probably the one rare time I'd say that a book's sequel is much better than its predecessor.

In this continuation of her diary, Bridget again recounts the ups and downs of the single life, coupled by the indifference shown to her by Mark Darcy, her now established boyfriend. "Hurrah! The wilderness years are now over. For four weeks and five days now have been in functional relationship with adult male, thereby proving am not love pariah as recently feared." Add to Darcy's indifference the arrival of Rebecca, who absolutely has no girlfriend code of ethics when it comes to poaching another woman's man.

Whole dating world is like hideous game of bluff and double bluff with men and women firing at each other from opposite lines of show more sandbags. Is as if there is a set of rules that you are supposed to be sticking to, but no one knows what they are so everyone just makes up their own. Then you end up getting chucked because you didn't follow the rules correctly, but how could you be expected to, when you didn't know what they were in the first place?

Everything else also proves to be topsy-turvy, as Bridget's mother has returned from a trip to Kenya with a young Masai in tow, to her father's consternation; her best friends Jude, Shazzer, and Tom are all trapped in dating hell themselves; her apartment has a gaping hole thanks to an unreliable carpenter; an ex-boyfriend (Daniel Cleaver) has just reentered her life; and now someone is sending Bridget death threats--could it be Mark Darcy as the detectives suspected?

Bridget is a slightly silly person, a bit on the unrealistic side (who knew that she had practically bought almost the entire section of self-help books of a bookstore?), but I suppose diaries (as the format of this novel proves) may include ones ultimate unrealistic fantasies (like being rescued by Colin Firth or Prince William). While Bridget is on the edge of reason, her on-again off-again boyfriend is the voice of reason and the perfect comic foil.

Book Details:

Title Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
Author Helen Fielding
Reviewed By Purplycookie show less