Bridget Jones's Diary
by Helen Fielding
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Book Reviews of Bridget Jones's Diary
Book Review: Laugh out loud funny
Summary: 5 Stars
In one of those coincidence thingies, both this book and the movie landed on my desk at the same time. Recognizing a sign when I saw one, I started with the book, seeing that it was written before the movie, and things should, after all, go in their natural order.
The first thing I had to do was go back in time a bit and try to remember my tables, when I realized that the little notations like 8st 11 were references to weight. After spending a few moments contemplating the complexity of 14 times tables, I took out my calculator to work out that Bridget weighed 129 lbs at the first chapter. This I thought was perfectly normal for a healthy young woman, and tried to remember if I had weighed that little at birth.
Fast forwarding to the summary of this outrageously funny book, I can tell you that it is about the hilarious episodes that led to Bridget Jones drinking 3,836 units of alcohol, smoking 5,277 cigarettes, eating 11,090,265 calories, gaining 72 lbs and losing 73 within a calendar year.
Laid out in the format of entries in a diary (hence the title - duh), we get the privilege of following every calamity and crisis of her romantic life (mostly pitiful), her weight swings (ongoing), her mother's midlife crisis (v.g.), her neurotic friends and their problems (numerous), her job exploits (unimpressive), her weakness for gambling on scratch cards (improvement required) and her cooking skills (non existent)
Once you pick it up you'll want to finish it in one sitting, and I was laughing out loud without even caring that people were beginning to edge away from me. (not so good). Just when you think you have the measure of the book, it picks up the pace in the last chapters, and turns into a madcap romp of pure reading pleasure.
Highly recommended for everyone except males with commitment problems, those dreadful people who can eat all they want without gaining weight, and European con men.
Amanda Richards, June 4, 2005
Book Review: Why would anyone choose to identify with Bridget?
Summary: 1 Stars
This is one of those dreadful books that is passed around the office by women who think of themselves as 'one of the girls'. Don't be fooled into identifying yourself with this novel; here's why: The few and rather flimsy reasons women think they identify with Bridget are that she's overweight, though the author is careful to slip in (lest you identify the character with her) between the exaggerations that this is only a matter of about ten pounds. Or else that Bridget is single, thirty-something, and feeling the societal pressures of settling down with a man. At worst, there's an association akin to being pulled in by hokey cigarette advertisements from the 1960's: hey ladies, you can smoke and drink, too: naughty equals cool. Fielding creates a false sense of sympathy for Bridget by positioning her in embarrassing situations in front of wealthy people. Yet Bridget moves too readily in those social circles she's meant to abhor. Not to mention that the author handles these situations rather obviously and clumsily. It's a transparent attempt to gain the reader as an ally and to let the author off the hook for when she slurps champagne at the novel's press release. (Really, isn't she more sophisticated than the sophisticated?) At least the show, Sex and the City is unapologetic about the fact that most women could not afford their lifestyle. It may be that the author is striking an ironic pose and believes this gives her credibility: hey, look, Pride and Prejudice: a man defines a woman: what's changed in over a hundred years? Or, wow, with our consumer culture, the character of Bridget does not so much resemble Elizabeth as she does Lydia. (Keep in mind that if she is writing with a sense of irony then she is insulting her fans.) The poor quality of the writing will not get her off the hook as far as any intelligent reader is concerned. The only reason Fielding wrote this book was to make money. Save yourself a wasted afternoon and find a more worthwhile cause to fund than the author's bar tab.Book Review: Sex, Drugs, and Dieting
Summary: 4 Stars
Charmless but highly imaginative, Bridget Jones Diary records the pathetic life of a woman with nothing better to do than obsess about men while reveling in food, cigarettes, and booze.Brilliant humor helps the reader machete through this morass of gluttony and selfishness. Names evoke smiles like boss Perpetua who perpetually talks at work and Vile Richard the commitment-phobic boyfriend. Caricatures abound. TV guru Richard Finch frequently adds the phrase "I'm thinking" before a sentence. For example: "I want you on-camera. I'm thinking miniskirt. I'm thinking fireman's helmet. I'm thinking pointing the hose." And there are many amusing references to old romance novels like Pride & Prejudice.
Unfortunately, many jokes fall flat like Bridget and Michael's geeky e-mail chats about an anthropomorphized skirt. And there's the grandma caricature who makes "funny" remarks at Christmastime, for instance, picking up a tube of Smarties and saying "Oh look, a penis."
But flat jokes are not as bad as the sickening ones. Bridget is an alcoholic. At the end of the year she proudly states she lived 114 "Hangover-free days". Sometimes she writes in a drunken stupor: "2. a.m. Gor es wor blurry ggofun tonight though." Some people may think this is funny, but nondrinkers will likely be disgusted.
Still, it is the eating that really grosses out. Raspberry surprise, pizza, Swiss Mountain bars, salmon pinwheels, Milk trays, etc. are gobbled up and recorded. Bridget is constantly referring to food, even when she's not eating it. Yo-yo dieting doesn't help. And the tiresome daily calorie counting indicates this method produces a zero effect.
Overall, the diary presents a very unflattering portrait of Bridget. In the end when she hooks up with a decent fellow, you wonder what he sees in her. She appears to have few inner qualities to attract a guy like that. Perhaps it is luck. Bridget herself admits when playing the lottery: "I do quite often win."
Book Review: Story of 30-Something Simpleton
Summary: 2 Stars
This book was pretty good, but I can't say it really lived up to all of the media commotion. The story of a British 30-something woman, who believes that life would be perfect (or at least bearable) if she could stop smoking, limit her alcohol consumption level drastically, find a boyfriend who was not an emotional 'nit'-witt, and lose seven pounds. Each entry starts with a list of Bridget's progress or failure to accomplish on these levels. The book is rather funny as it takes us through her emotional roller-coaster of bad boyfriends, stiff boyfriends, young boyfriends, and every other combination of male hormones imaginable, while contemplating the benefits of remaining a spinster and becoming a 'Smug Married' and even the possibility that she may be pregnant. We hear about her mother's hilarious exploits as the adulterous girlfriend of a Portuguese smuggler. We also get a glimpse of Bridget's private dislike of a body that is bulkier than she might prefer.The benefits to this book are that it is quite normal. We meet a woman who has a job, has friends, and has a dating life. She gets drunk, has sexual relationships, and has insecurities about her appearance--all of these things happening within a moderate degree and not blooming into dangerous, consuming obsessions. She gets embarrassed has superficial crises and then moves on. It is a light and humorous read--although tedious in parts--about the life of a woman who is determined to have it all, but will not cause great tragedy to get it. On the other hand, there is a negative aspect to this book which is rather disconcerting. Is this all that a person in her thirties can amount to? There is a part of Bridget which really does just seem like an overgrown teenager, still obsessed with boys, shopping, and weight. Is this the way a typical adult should be acting? Part of you will say no, part of you will say yes. But overall this is a good read, which is simply meant to be taken lightly.
Book Review: Not Hilarious, But Certainly Entertaining!
Summary: 5 Stars
I didn't find this book "hilarious" and I didn't "split a gut laughing", but I got quite a few smiles and even more chuckles out of it. Just about every page had something cute or witty on it, which I found really enjoyable. I could definitely relate to Bridget & her eternal quests for happiness and a botfriend. Since there are so many reviews on this book explaining what it is about, I thought I'd write a few of my favorite lines from the book:"I realize it has become too easy to find a diet to fit in with whatever you happen to feel like eating and that diets are not there to be picked and mixed but picked and stuck to, which is exactly what I shall begin to do once I've eaten this chocolate croissant."
"Maybe Dad will appear hanging upside down outside the window dressed as a Morris dancer, crash in and start hitting Mum over the head with a sheep's bladder; or suddenly fall facedown out of the airing cupboard with a plastic knife stuck in his back. The only thing which can possibly get everything back on course is a Bloody Mary. It's nearly afternoon after all."
"...just had cigarette, but no-smoking day does not start officially until I have gotten dressed."
"...so all I've got to do is find someone or something to have power over and then...oh G*d, I haven't even got power over my own hair."
"Twenty-two hours, four pizzas, one Indian takeaway, three packets of cigarettes and three bottles of champagne later, Daniel is still here. I am in love. I am also now between one and all of the following...a) back on thirty a day...b) engaged ... c) stupid... d) pregnant."
Some of these quotes were taken out of context, but I still thought they were cute. All in all, this is a very entertaining book, well worth the read...and it's a quick read, too, and makes for a fun weekend escape from reality.