Prepare yourselves, it's about to get personal up in here.
So, I've never seen the movie of Bridget Jones's Diary, so I thought I would read the highly acclaimed book before doing so and, to my great surprise, I ended up hating almost everything about it. I 100% understand why people like it - it's funny and relatable and reminiscent of the great decade that was the 90's, but because of a purely personal problem, this book made me feel like garbage and therefore made me absolutely loathe my reading experience.
Bridget is always writing down her weight and saying she's fat, but the thing is, it's not just herself saying this. Friends, family and other characters also call her fat throughout the novel and then I look at me, who weighs over 15 kilos more than Bridget, and it honestly made me feel like crap. I have already been struggling with confidence and self-loathing because over the past couple of years I've put on 25 kilos due to changing medications for my mental health, so this book honestly just made it worse. Is this what people on the street think about me when I walk by? Do my friends and family secretly discuss how much weight I've put on behind my back? It honestly took me back to when members of my own family were making snide remarks about my weight or offering suggestions for how exercise and dieting could benefit me, thinking they were helping when really, it made it ten times worse.
I was 3/4 of the way through the book, when I thought to myself, has anything plot-wise actually happened? Nope. Just a bunch of damaging self-hatred that triggered my own.
I get that a lot of people love the book and that's fine, I totally get it, but for me, it ended up being a damaging and destructive novel that ended up being quite triggering for my depression.
Let me know any thoughts you guys have on this book or any of the things I've discussed!

Around the Year in 52 Books Challenge Notes:
- 20. A book with a first name in the title

I don't understand the hype...

Originally posted on A Frolic Through Fiction

n  Ohhhhhhhhhhh how I REALLY didn’t get along with this book. n

Here I was, just coming out of a reading slump, thinking to myself “I need something kind of fun and light-hearted to pull me out of this last bit”. I remembered I had this book for years now. And I mean years. I also remembered that the film – while it’s not necessarilyn   goodn, it’s a guilty pleasure kind of thing for me. So I figured it was about time I read this book.

Ugh.

I just…no. I didn’t like this book.

I hate comparing books to their movies but with this one, it just has to be done. The film is fun and something silly to watch. The book was so incredibly self-pitying and miserable. What’s funny in the film is only worth an eye-roll in the book. I didn’t like any of the characters in the book, but Daniel I n  especiallyn hated. If he spoke to me the way he did to Bridget, he would be out of my life as quick as a flash, the manipulative tool.

Not even my favourite scene from the film is in here.

But enough with the book-to-film comparison.

Because even without the film giving me some idea of what to expect beforehand, I know I still wouldn’t have liked this book. It’s just way too downhearted for me.

I mean, it’s the diary of a thirty-something year old woman who just complains about everything. And yes, I get that it’s her diary. That’s what it’s there for. Vent your thoughts all you like. But you’d think that in AN ENTIRE YEAR, she’d have something good to say at some point, instead of just lots of self-pity, counting calories and the occasional motivational optimism (that’d last for only a paragraph).

Again, I get that it’s a diary. But everything revolves around her. Every single time someone else in this book has a problem – no matter how serious it was – Bridget would only think about how it’d affect her. Her parents had a problem, and she actually said “Am I to be the tragic victim of a broken home now, on top of everything else?” Excuse me – What about how your parents are dealing with this?! AGGHHH.

You’d think that someone with a job and home in London would be relatively happy. Or at least grateful. But no. Apparently your life is pointless if you’re a woman without a husband by the age of 30. But then while thinking this, she and her friends give feminism a bad name by hating and bashing the male gender (OH, unless they’re gay of course) and claiming their generalised rants to be “feminism”. No. It’s not. I know this book was written a while ago and feminism is still a thing being built and understood, but I can’t help but think it’s books like this that make people think all feminists are “man-haters”.

The same goes for the phrase used time and time again in this book: “oh my god I’m so depressed”.

NO. YOU’RE. NOT. You’re miserable for a bit because you didn’t get a phone call or something, yes. I get how bloody negative you are. But you do not have depression. That’d be a different story altogether. Plus there’s no need to say it so many times.

And I n  known that I can’t relate to this. I’m 18 years old – not a 30 something year old who’s worried about being an unlovable spinster for the rest of their life. But quite frankly, I don’t ever want to relate to Bridget Jones. I never want to get to a point where I will count every single calorie, weight gain, cigarette, alcohol unit, or times I’ve called someone. I never want to have such a miserable mind set. I never want to feel like I have to change myself in order for people like me.

Honestly, this isn’t a bad book. It was awfully written or anything like that. I can see why some people might enjoy it. Why some might relate to it.

But personally, I didn’t enjoy this book at all. It was way too negative for me, and I’d have rather just watched the film again.

I know this is a very negative review on my part, so I just want to say sorry if I’ve offended anyone. I really don’t mean to. But I can’t help not liking a book. It just happens sometimes.

n  Rated 1/5 starsn

n  “It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces.”n

as the film adaptation is one of my favorite comfort movies, i just had to read the book that started it all... and while i did enjoy it, it's one of the rare cases where i can confidently say the movie is definitely better, both in terms of the story and also the characters. bridget jones (movie version) is just so lovable and i didn't really get to see as much of that in the book.

Wow. This did not age well.

I hadn't read this befire, but I think ill stick to the film. Bridget Jones thinking 9 stone 7lbs is fat is probably the reason I had so many issues with my weight as a teenager!!

I liked the extra material in this from the author but overall I'm not glad I read it

Like our narrator, both funny and deceptively stylish.



(I have not seen the film).

For me, reading this book was exactly like watching a season of "Ally McBeal" - when I laughed, I laughed outloud and thoroughly enjoyed myself. And occasionally I did allow myself to care who ends up with whom. But I held a grudge against the main character throughout for being so ludicrously insecure and vulnerable to vulgar materialism.

Like Ally, Bridget is a self-proclaimed feminist who cannot hold onto a single tenet of the concept long enough to spare herself any plummets on her emotional rollercoaster of second-guessing and self-scrutiny. Many of the women with which she surrounds herself are in fact far more self-confident than she is, but there are no signs of it rubbing off.

Of course I was satisfied that in the end she was swept away by a diamond in the rough instead of the first greasy charmer, but it annoyed me to no end that she was so very passively swept away. Although Mark Darcy did let her know how impressed he was with her profile as a well-read feminist and her willingness to show up at a party in a bunny suit, she prefers to tell her diary what a turn-on it is to see him take control of her mother's legal fate in a swaggering, authoritarian way. Like Ally McBeal, Bridget does not see a boyfriend as a partner but rather the constant cat to her mouse.

It's hard to be a working, single woman in today's modern society - yes. It's difficult to find a soul mate amid all the social pressure to simply find someone - yes. But obsessing over weight, appearance, and everyone else's opinion of you is an adolescent phase that can and must be overcome. Otherwise, on the microcosmic level, feminism has failed you and it's dishonest to claim it as a guise.

Despite that however, dishonesty can still make for a very funny, light read. I picked this book because the theme of infanticide in the other novel I had going was getting to be too much for me, and on that level it did not disappoint.

Demult nu am citit o carte în care protagonista face haz de necaz de viața ei și de toate situațiile nasoale prin care trece.

Am râs în hohote pe alocuri. Am ascultat această carte, naratorul fiind o actriță care citea pe roluri și cu diferite intonații, cu mare interes. Aș mai fi ascultat vreo câteva ore. Monologuri sincere, replici dure și o viață de-a-ndoaselea pe care o condimentează cu umor și alcool

I have never been a big fan of Bridget Jones to be honest. Renee Zellweger's portrayal of the klutzy, down-on-luck, slightly overweight British singleton in her 30s and her discernibly fake British accent did not help. Sure she received an Academy award nomination for her role, however that does not change my opinion. I only remember the movie for Colin Firth.
But this book made me see Bridget in a different light. Sure she is a bit on the pudgy side, clumsy, alcoholic with fabulously bad culinary skills but she does not discard her self-esteem right away in return for Daniel Cleaver's affections in the beginning. I'm impressed that the author deliberately did not make Bridget the quintessential, 'beautifully anorexic' girl but a woman with numerous flaws and yet chose to give her an acute sense of self-importance. Bridget does obsess about losing weight but at least she never goes ballistic trying to lose it or go "I'm so fat" every two seconds. She is more or less happy and comfortable in her skin and that is what separates her from the hordes of chick-lit heroines out there.

Bridget's hilarious observations on the problems faced by single women, relationships, married people, her parents' marital woes and even trifles like Christmas presents make this book an absolute laugh riot. Whereas the movie focuses too much on Bridget as a laughably clumsy woman who never gets anything right and I was forced to wonder what Daniel Cleaver and especially Mark Darcy found attractive about her. The book served as the clarification in this case since Mark Darcy clearly states how Bridget is not 'lacquered over' like other women which is why he likes her. Whereas in the movie he declares 'I like you very much...just as you are' which sounded extremely cliched and unreal in my opinion.

I was about 60% through with the novel when the plot started to drag. Bridget and Daniel's relationship went in limbo and I kept waiting for something to happen which would carry the story forward. Then came the bad part when Bridget began screwing up one thing after the other in exceptionally embarrassing ways and I was almost feeling sorry for Mark Darcy for having been designated to end up with her. And the worst part was, how one phone call from Daniel swayed Bridget to the point of momentarily making her forget his shameless infidelity. Hated her for it. That is why the 5-star rating drops to a 4-star in my case.
But even so, Bridget Jones is one of the best specimens of chick-lit out there since it is free from the banality of American chick-lit tropes, interlaced with a generous dosage of trademark English humour. And behind the facade of a rom-com, it is able to bring to light a few rather grim aspects of lives of women in their 30s and women in general.

I didn't enjoy this book in an ironic way, or in a it's-good-even-though-, or I-can't-believe-I-do-but-I-perversely-can't-help-it or any other angled, roundabout, halfway indirect from behind kind of way.... No. I sat on my couch and wolfed this thing down in one sitting while laughing my ass off.

I read it last spring when I decided I was curious about what "chick-lit" was, so that I could form an opinion and generally improve my likelihood of passing as a somewhat informed member of civilization. This was not the only "chick-lit" book I attempted. I tried *Bergdorf Blondes*, the first few pages of which made me want to stab my eyes out with a rusty fork; well, maybe it made me more want to stab someone else's eyes out (Plum Sykes springs to mind), but my point is that it wasn't just bad but actually highly disturbing. Disturbing as in, does not so much shake as demolish one's faith in humanity and makes one tremble in horror at the times we're evidently living in..... I also tried *Good in Bed*, which wasn't upsetting, but did seem pretty bad, or at least definitely not for me. I even flipped open a *Shopaholic* book, which wasn't as awfully written as *Bergdorf Blondes* but did similarly make yearn for a grim Stalinist dystopia where this kind of trash just isn't permitted.

Then there was Bridget Jones.

Now, my enjoyment of this book was not uncomplicated by this terrifying "I-am-Cathy" feeling that I'm now enough of a grownup to identify with a lovably neurotic character from fluffy popular women's fiction. Because, dear bookster, identify I did. Yes. I had the 100% straightforward chick-lit experience, which I guess must be exactly this sense of recognizing your own ridiculously stereotypical feminine traits in a light novel's plucky heroine. And seriously? That's exactly what happened to me.

(Can I just explain that I'm supposed to be packing right now, which is why this is getting so long and involved? I'm not really crazy, I'm just procrastinating.) (Also, though, I do want to tell you guys about Bridget Jones and how weirdly good it was.)

There were a few things I didn't realize about BJ before I read this book. One is, she drinks too much. The other is, she smokes. I know it sounds dumb, but I think I would've felt differently knowing that, instead of just that she struggles with food. I'd sort of heard that a lot of it was about efforts to control her weight or whatever, and this typical, you know, on-again-off-again dieting, blah blah blah, and I really couldn't imagine anything less appealing, partly because that isn't a problem I identify with, and partly because does the world really need another book about a self-hating lady trying to lose weight? And why would anyone want to read something like that anyway?

Well, I would. And I did! Because it's not really about her trying to lose weight (although I guess it kind of is), it's more about the constant, compulsive agony self-inflicted by a woman cursed not only with zero impulse control and a ravenous id, but also obsessively high standards for herself and a ridiculous amount of guilt and self-scrutiny about virtually everything she does.

So yeah basically, this book is about me and a lot (not all) of my close female friends. And it really, really -- I want you to hear this from me -- truly gets at some stuff about certain ways that a lot of women tend to act and think, which, I'm sorry, all my fancy feminisms and gender theory aside, let's be honest, a lot (not all) of us are very crazy in some classically female ways, and Fielding just NAILS a lot of those. Plus she's very funny.

Is this the greatest book ever written? No. But it was fun to read.

Obviously, not all men act one way, and not all women act like Bridget Jones. However, I certainly do, and that must be the reason I got such a kick out of this book.

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/

Like so many others out there the holidays can sometimes get me feeling blah. Not like seasonal depression or can’t-get-out-of-bed kind of depression, more like just . . . . “meh.” In an effort to combat that, I do things like going balls out on Christmas decorating well before Thanksgiving, making giant Sunday dinners with all the fixins as soon as the leaves start to change in case I turn into a “please just go get Taco Bell” kind of Mom between Thanksgiving and the New Year and tipping the scales heavier than usual when it comes reading/watching things of the feel good rather than the stabby variety. Thus is the case with Bridget Jones and her diary.

I’m not a big re-reader (but I am HUGE re-watcher). My family always knows I’m about to go spelunking in the basement for decorations as soon as I’ve watched Christmas Vacation (usually as close as possible to the day after Halloween) and it becomes hot cocoa, cookies, snuggly blanket and cozy reads season with the annual viewings of Serendipity and Bridget Jones’ Diary. There’s just something about moments like these . . . .

n  n

Oh and just in case you’re wondering if I’m a pod person, I assure you I’m not. In my world it’s not officially Christmas until this happens . . . .

n  n

Greatest Christmas movie ever. Period.

It seems ol’ Bridge is a fail for the newer generation. The only thing I can say is this is not a story that’s meant to be taken seriously so if you’re not in on the joke, it definitely won’t work for you. Put yourself in the mindset of geriatrics like me and Bridget . . . .

n  “I am a child of Cosmopolitan culture, have been traumatized by supermodels and too many quizzes and know that neither my personality nor my body is up to it if left to its own devices.”n

Realize that Bridget’s inner dialogue regarding weight, alcohol and cigarettes is more of a “first world problem” type of confessional rather than an “I’m going to go stick my head in the oven because I’m a morbidly obese drunk with lung cancer and no one will ever love me” admission.

es un libro corto y aún así lo sentí demasiado largo jajaja.
no sé qué decir la verdad. prefiero mucho más la película.
eso si, creo que puede llegar a ser gatillante el comportamiento obsesivo de bridget con la comida y las calorías. hace muchos años yo hacía exactamente lo mismo y creo que, si mi relación con mi cuerpo no estuviera mejor ahora, me hubiese sentido como el hoyo leyendo este libro.