Bridget Jones and I are about the same age. When I was younger, I loved her. I don’t know as I wanted to be her friend because she was a bit exasperating, but I loved her. I got her. I got the Daniel Cleaver thing. I got the Mark Darcy thing. It was like she understood every bit of angst there was at that time in my life. Bridget has grown up, and so (allegedly) have I, and I still love her. Why? Because she […]
I’m Still Mad About Bridget
So yes, Fielding kills off Mark Darcy in the third book of the Bridget Jones series. That was very upsetting. But honestly, I thought this novel was better than the second one, Edge of Reason, which was pretty Darcy-centric. Mad About the Boy is all about Bridget, just like the first book, and her shitty love life and her faltering career and her obnoxious (but we love them!) friends. There’s a new element to Mad About the Boy, though, that was probably the best part of the book: Bridget […]
Nostalgia for Bridget Jones
Oh Bridget… I felt obligated to read Mad About the Boy from a completionist standpoint. I read the first two novels and saw the movies, it only seemed logical to read the long awaited (was it?) sequel (cash grab) *Eighteen month old spoiler* * * * * Ok, so Mad About the Boy opens with Bridget in a new dating dilemma over her first boyfriend since the perfect Mark Darcy’s death. I get that Fielding had to kill Mark because no would be sympathetic to […]
“And I should tell him all my pain,…”
And I should tell him all my pain, And how my life had droop’d of late, And he should sorrow o’er my state And marvel what possess’d my brain; (Tennyson, In Memoriam XIV.13-16) Mad About the Boy, the third Bridget Jones book, is confusing. But then, Bridget Jones herself and her narratives are confusing; there’s the original Bridget Jones of the Independent newspaper columns, there’s Bridget Jones of the films, and there’s Bridget Jones of the books. I’m pretty sure that Bridget Jones of […]
Mad at Helen Fielding
So. I finally read Mad about the Boy. I don’t know what to do with it. But I know that I didn’t love it. After two books, in which Bridget was navigating life as a 30-something Singleton, we skip right over her married years to Mark Darcy and skip ahead to 2013, where he’s been dead for five years, and she’s left to think about dating again with two young children. There are numerous dating hijinks and misunderstandings and a refried Elizabeth-and-Darcy relationship, to boot. […]
A more contemplative Bridget Jones? v.v.good
I had forgotten how many ties Edge of Reason shares with another Austen novel, Persuasion. In fact, some of the sly references made the reading that much more enjoyable. As a sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason is v.good, but as a Persuasion contemporary adaptation, it does quite nicely. Not like the movie. In fact, let’s never mention the second movie, shall we? This novel finds Bridget Jones knee-deep in a new relationship with Mark Darcy, enjoying the highs and lows of new relationship, […]