2023 edit: Just listened to the entire audiobook while doing a 500-piece puzzle and burning a pumpkin candle. These are my wild Saturday nights these days. No regrets.

EXCERPT: Noon, London. My flat: Ugh! The last thing on earth I feel physically, emotionally or mentally equipped to do is drive to Una and Geoffrey Alconbury's New Year's Day Turkey Curry Buffet in Grafton Underwood. Geoffrey and Una Alconbury are my parents best friends and, as Uncle Geoffrey never tires of reminding me, he has known me since I was running around the lawn with no clothes on. My mother rang up at 8.30 in the morning last August Bank Holiday and forced me to promise to go.

ABOUT THIS BOOK: Meet Bridget Jones—a 30-something Singleton who is certain she would have all the answers if she could:
a. lose 7 pounds
b. stop smoking
c. develop Inner Poise

"123 lbs. (how is it possible to put on 4 pounds in the middle of the night? Could flesh have somehow solidified becoming denser and heavier? Repulsive, horrifying notion), alcohol units 4 (excellent), cigarettes 21 (poor but will give up totally tomorrow), number of correct lottery numbers 2 (better, but nevertheless useless)..."

Bridget Jones' Diary is the devastatingly self-aware, laugh-out-loud daily chronicle of Bridget's permanent, doomed quest for self-improvement — a year in which she 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.

Over the course of the year, Bridget loses a total of 72 pounds but gains a total of 74. She remains, however, optimistic. Through it all, Bridget will have you helpless with laughter, and — like millions of readers the world round — you'll find yourself shouting, "Bridget Jones is me!

MY THOUGHTS: I started out thinking that this book was fun. But that quickly wore off. Bridget became, for me, the poster girl for the shallow, inane sort of twit whose only ambition in life is to make a good marriage and have a man support her. The more I read, the more frustrated I felt, and I abandoned this read half way through. If it hadn’t been a library copy, I probably would have burnt it.

THE AUTHOR: Helen Fielding was born in Yorkshire. She worked for many years in London as a newspaper and TV journalist, travelling as wildly and as often as possibly to Africa, India and Central America. She is the author of four novels: Cause Celeb, Bridget Jones’ s Diary, Bridget Jones:The Edge of Reason and Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination, and co-wrote the screenplays for the movie of Bridget Jones’s Diary and the sequel based on The Edge of Reason. She now works full-time as a novelist and screenwriter and lives in London and Los Angeles.

DISCLOSURE: I accept that reading is a subjective exercise and that we are not all going to agree on what is a good read (thank goodness, because it would be a boring old world if we did). I would like to stress that this is my personal opinion only, and that literally hundreds of thousands of people have read and enjoyed this book. I am not one of them.

All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions. Please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the 'about' page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com for an explanation of my rating system.

This review and others are also published on my blog sandysbookaday.wordpress.com https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...

Somebody once said to me that every time somebody reads 'Bridget Jones's Diary' Jane Austen turns in her grave. Given the popularity of BJD, I suggested that somebody attach Austen's corpse to a dynamo and solve the world's energy crisis.

Yes, this book has its faults but, damn it, I think it's very, very funny, and just what I needed while in COVID-19 lockdown. Bring on book two!

2/5stars

I'm OVER pride and prejudice and p/p adaptations uwu ✌️

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.

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.

When reading this I automatically thought this was my diary. I too love food and binge eat and drink and sing to women empowering music when drunk. I too had an office relationship that was more between the sheets than a Disney movie. I too curse like it's my first language and have wacky friends. Basically, Helen Fielding gets it and I love it. I recommend reading this when you need a good laugh (especially while binge eating and drinking). Also, see the movie because it's one of my favorites.

I like the movie a lot. A long time ago, I made a promise to myself that I will read the original book in English.
At least 10 years passed and I achieved that little goal today.
What can I say? I like the movie more)))

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

Nov. 9, 2023 Addendum
"Space is big." Douglas Adams

Originally, I didn't go to the Bridget Jones movie or read the book because (pausing while trying to think of a nonoffensive way to say) they sounded totally stupid. After I read the book, I searched for a polite way to say the book probably wouldn't cause permanent damage to your IQ.

So why did I read the Bridget Jones book?

Recently, I've become interested in the genre that Blake Snyder calls Fool Triumphant, and Jessica Brody wrote that Bridget Jones was a good example of this genre. She also included Stargirl in her list of Fool Triumphant novels. Molly in The Maid and Forrest Gump are also examples of the Fool Triumphant genre. (On Goodreads, the general consensus on Forrest Gump appears to be that if you love the movie, you'll hate the book and vice-versa. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the movie, so maybe I'll like the book.)

In conclusion, I'm gonna stick with my original conclusion, that is, Bridget Jones probably won't cause permanent damage to your IQ.

==============

Nov. 1, 2023

"Mostly harmless." Douglas Adams

Obwohl dieses Buch schon 20 Jahre alt ist, konnte es mich echt begeistern! Mit sehr viel Witz, Realität und Sarkasmus konnte es mich für sich gewinnen. Die Story ist sehr nahe am Buch, was ich gut fand, da ich zuerst den Film gesehen habe. Super Buch für Single Ladies, die auch mal über sich selbst lachen können. Girlpower! ;)

The simultaneous failure and masterstroke of this book is, of course, the fact that Bridget Jones is everyone. It’s a delightfully funny romp of a book; the pages turn quickly and the laughs come easily because every reader identifies with Bridget’s misfortune and neuroticism. But the fact that most readers will identify with her means that she’s probably not individualized enough—except in her case, with her zany ways, it’s likely that she’s too much of an individual, which paradoxically makes her an archetype. If that makes any sense…

Really, though, this isn’t the type of book where such a criticism matters. It’s a book to be enjoyed quickly, in the brief moments where you’re not, like Bridget, obsessing over your love life or career or appearance. I found it impressive that although many of these characters are frequently unlikeable (Bridget herself is horrible when her friend Tom “disappears”), they are all so easy to sympathize with.

Although I haven’t read much “chick-lit” and I also despise that term, I am willing to bet this is a highlight of the genre. For the most part, it’s light and funny, but it also puts emphasis on significant current social issues, particularly those concerning the role of “modern” women. And for that reason, I expect Bridget Jones’s Diary will, despite its fluffy exterior, go down in the literary annals because it quite accurately represents the major anxieties facing women in the beginning of the 21st century while managing to be witty and charming.

Immediate Thoughts
I never ever thought I'd enjoy a "chick-lit" book this much. But Bridget Jones was hilarious...even though I think her kooky mother was the real star!