Bridget Jones's Diary
by Helen Fielding
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Book Summary Information
Author: Helen FieldingEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); 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: Made Me Roar With Laughter
Summary: 5 Stars
In my short lifetime I have noticed many things about girls. The largest, however, are our numerous insecurities. We want our bodies toner, our breasts bigger, our hair straighter, our bad habits gone, and our status with males to be quite good. These desires tend to grow as we get older. None the less is more true in Bridget's life, a women who is probably the inventor of self esteem issues. Women feel as if they can relate to Bridget's imperfections through their own "problems". The reader does not have to feel shame from these imperfections because of the book's constant comedy that causes one to roar. That is just one of the many reasons why women everywhere should read Bridget Jones Diary. This book will surely make women feel as if the book was written about themselves.Bridget, a 33 year old British women working at a publishing house, is starting off her New Year with a resolution, well more like a hundred of them. She wants to lose seven pounds; stop obsessing over her boss, Daniel Cleaver; spend more money then she earns; stop smoking; drink less alcohol; and to go to the gym a few times a week(the list continues...). Throughout the book at the beginning of each entry you are given insight on her progress. The story begins with Bridget's trip for dinner with her relatives and friends who are keen on getting Bridget married. She is introduced to the newly divorced lawyer Mark Darcy. They do not exactly hit it off. He is absolutely uninterested in Bridget and her loud, smoke inhaling self. Once, back at home and back to work, Bridget is still falling for her boss. Daniel and her begin dating and taking "mini breaks" all over England. In many of Daniel and Bridget's outings they run into Mark. Bridget senses that Daniel and Mark know each other and do not get along. Daniel tells her that they were roommates at Cambridge and ends the conversation there. Bridget comes home after she goes to a party with her parents to find Daniel there with another women. Devastated by the whole mess, she quits her job and starts work at a television station. On her first assignment she fails miserably, but is given another chance to redeem herself by interviewing a lady who was on trial. Bridget once again messes up her assignment. She is buying cigarettes and sweets in a next door shop as the women comes out of the courthouse. Luckily, Mark Darcy enters. He tells her that he was representing the women, and that no reporters got interviews with her. Mark agrees to allow Bridget to interview the his client. Bridget begins to have feelings for Mark, and is starting to get over Daniel. However, you will have to read the book to see if Bridget and Mark hook up, or if she gets back together with Daniel Cleaver.
Throughout the entire story, Bridget's parents are struggling in their own relationship. Each parent is constantly calling Bridget to tell her their side of the story. Bridget's mom has found a new man named Julio and she has a new career. Bridget's father is miserable after Bridget's mom leaves him for Julio. Near the end of the book you learn the truth between Julio and Mrs. Jones life together. If you think you can find out the ending through the watching the movie, it does not even follow the second half of the book at all.
Bridget is struggling throughout the story with her calorie intake, smoking addiction, and developing inner poise. Many know how women go to the bathroom in groups. This book is a fine example of how true that statement is and how much women depend on their friends. Bridget constantly calls her friends to get help with her problems with men, work, and life. The end of the book ends on New Years day, you will have to see how many of her resolutions were met.
The character development in the books is obviously fantastic for the main characters. The book is a diary so you learn all about Bridget and her personality, her problems, and her partners. However, I was often lost when it came to her close friends and family. There seemed to be so many friends that I was lost on who was who. Characters that were mentioned at a dinner in the beginning of the book would be brought back into the plot at the end of the book. I found that was some what confusing but not enough to affect how much I enjoyed the book. In a whole the book was extremely realistic. It is down right hilarious through it's realism, especially the parts with her mother and Bridget's cooking skills. However, the end with Julio I found a bit far fetched. You will have to read it to see what I mean. I thought the issues that developed within the book were very serious, yet Helen Fielding was able to make them light and humorous. Fielding hit upon Bridget's weight during the scene where Bridget finds out about Daniel cheating on her. I found it amusing yet saddening in one.
The comedy made the book. Bridget's character was hilarious and her family was so much like mine it was scary. I found myself often laughing out loud, hysterically. I liked the book so much that I shared some of the story with my mother, who enjoyed the book as well. Overall, this book would be best for a woman to read. However, men would get some insight into a woman's mind and how much we worry. Either way both males and females would get a great laugh from Bridget Jones Diary. I highly recommend this book, with five stars.
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, Bridget Jones's Diary has touched a raw nerve with millions of readers the world round. Read it and laugh--before you cry, "Bridget Jones is me!"
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
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