Bridget Jones's Diary
by Helen Fielding
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Book Summary Information
Author: Helen FieldingEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1999-05-24
ISBN: 014028009X
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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Book Reviews of Bridget Jones's Diary
Book Review: Enjoyable
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm one of those people who picked this book up in response to have seeing the movie and, quite surprisingly, there is much different between the two. If you are looking for a lighthearted, fun, and energetic time--I'd go with the movie because it skims over much of the detailed misery in the book. However, if you are looking for a realistic and somewhat agonized portrayal of a middle-aged singleton, then this is the book for you.
The pace of the book is more prolonged than the movie, and there is much more to the relationship between Daniel and Bridget. By the time bridget was back on her two feet again, the book was nearly over and I wondered how the author would wind it up with Darcy. Perhaps this is the reason she supported it with a sequel strongly adhered to that aspect of her life.
The reason I give it a four star is because it's somewhat difficult to read about a person who is going through a time in her life everyone has experienced sometime or the other. You know, that period of life where you hate yourself to such a degree that you're on a perpetual rampage of self improvment? It's excruciating to read sometimes, although recommendable.
Summary of Bridget Jones's Diary
Bridget Jones's Diary is the devastatingly self-aware, laugh-out-loud account of a year in the life of a thirty-something Singleton on a permanent doomed quest for self-improvement. Caught between the joys of Singleton fun, and the fear of dying alone and being found three weeks later half eaten by an Alsatian; tortured by Smug Married friends asking, "How's your love life" with lascivious, yet patronizing leers, Bridget resolves to reduce the circumference of each thigh by 1.5 inches, visit the gym three times a week not just to buy a sandwich, form a functional relationship with a responsible adult and learn to program the VCR. With a blend of flighty charm, existential gloom, and endearing self-deprecation, the diary has touched a raw nerve with millions of readers the world round. Read it, laugh and crash your head onto the table before you cry, "Bridget Jones is me!""Screamingly funny." --USA Today
"Bridget Jones is channeling something so universal and (horrifyingly) familiar that readers will giggle and sigh with collective delight." --Elle
"Hilarious but poignant." --The Washington Post
"This juicy diary tells the truth with a verve as appealing to men on Mars as it is to Venusian women. A." --Entertainment Weekly
"An unforgettably droll character." --Newsweek
"Bridget's voice is dead-on . . . will cause readers to drop the book, grope frantically for the phone and read it out loud to their best girlfriends." --The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Fielding. . .has rummaged all too knowingly through the bedrooms, closets, hearts and minds of women everywhere." --Glamour
"Good-bye Rules Girls, hello Singletons...Endearingly engaging." --The New York Times Book Review
In the course of the year recorded in Bridget Jones's Diary, Bridget confides her hopes, her dreams, and her monstrously fluctuating poundage, not to mention her consumption of 5277 cigarettes and "Fat units 3457 (approx.) (hideous in every way)." In 365 days, she gains 74 pounds. On the other hand, she loses 72! There is also the unspoken New Year's resolution--the quest for the right man. Alas, here Bridget goes severely off course when she has an affair with her charming cad of a boss. But who would be without their e-mail flirtation focused on a short black skirt? The boss even contends that it is so short as to be nonexistent.
At the beginning of Helen Fielding's exceptionally funny second novel, the thirtyish publishing puffette is suffering from postholiday stress syndrome but determined to find Inner Peace and poise. Bridget will, for instance, "get up straight away when wake up in mornings." Now if only she can survive the party her mother has tricked her into--a suburban fest full of "Smug Marrieds" professing concern for her and her fellow "Singletons"--she'll have made a good start. As far as she's concerned, "We wouldn't rush up to them and roar, 'How's your marriage going? Still having sex?'"
This is only the first of many disgraces Bridget will suffer in her year of performance anxiety (at work and at play, though less often in bed) and living through other people's "emotional fuckwittage." Her twin-set-wearing suburban mother, for instance, suddenly becomes a chat-show hostess and unrepentant adulteress, while our heroine herself spends half the time overdosing on Chardonnay and feeling like "a tragic freak." Bridget Jones's Diary began as a column in the London Independent and struck a chord with readers of all sexes and sizes. In strokes simultaneously broad and subtle, Helen Fielding reveals the lighter side of despair, self-doubt, and obsession, and also satirizes everything from self-help books (they don't sound half as sensible to Bridget when she's sober) to feng shui, Cosmopolitan-style. She is the Nancy Mitford of the 1990s, and it's impossible not to root for her endearing heroine. On the other hand, one can only hope that Bridget will continue to screw up and tell us all about it for years and books to come. --Kerry Fried
Fielding, Helen Books
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