К счастью, обложка и вынос совершенно не описывают содержание. Ожидала бездумный дамский романчик, получила довольно серьёзную историю о голоде в Африке, благотворительности и двух параллельных мирах. Рози, главная героиня, пытаясь забыть абьюзный роман, уезжает волонтёром в Африку. Начинает совершенно иную жизнь, неплохо с ней справляется, пока не сталкивается с очень серьёзным вызовом.
Впрочем, милых благоглупостей здесь тоже немного отсыплют.

This is a seriously underrated book, I wish more people would read it, especially after living in Africa! There are some very interesting lines questioning the white savior trope. Helen Fielding was ahead of her time here. I've read it a few times now and also have it on audiobook.

Lovely romance and charity

Rosie Richardson isn't Bridget Jones, but I did like her in spite of her highly improbable adventures in the world of the rich and famous and then in a fictitious African country on the verge of collapse due to starvation. It skewers the media world with its insatiable appetite for intensity and excitement, at any cost, and the cluelessness of people in the "developed" world (and not just the 1%). Good story.

I actually bought this book when it was originally published, but I recall not feeling that impressed with it. For which I've come to feel guilty as I relish the Bridget Jones franchise. But it's not that this book is bad. It's not. It's just not great either. Frankly, it's simply average. And sometimes for some books, average is fine. And that very well may be the case here. It's just that I've seen the author do much better with other efforts so compared to those, this doesn't shine. On its own? A number of people may really enjoy it. I won't recommend it but I also won't tell people to stay away like I sometimes do. If you read it, I hope you like it.

Sticking with the Brits, this is Fielding's first novel. Bridget Jones meets Bob Geldof, half set in London with another pretty young woman thinking herself always too fat, loving an abusive asshole, drinking a lot and freaking out about make-up and stockings and shaving, the other half with her working as an aide in a refuge camp. Since Rosie is more intelligent and competent and assertive than Bridget, even though both are creatures of the publicity and media world, and since Fielding herself has worked on documentaries about UK aid for Africa, this is plausible, and actually more welcome than the London chapters, even if those were what would later make Fielding big (even though mentions of catastrophies in Africa et al were always present, and always mixed with quite plausible results with the ditzy heroine's other exploits, humanity as the balancing stone of what is meant to be the eternal female and just makes me sad).
Fielding is more directly outspoken here - what people could read out of BJ, or ignore if they were very shallow, is here criticised more openly, e.g. weight issues and other (self/society) inflicted plagues esp. in contrast to famine. I had said after "Is That It?" that I wondered just that, what happened later, how did that aid actually work, and this book actually shows that - and Fielding says that in order to keep on living in this world, everyone keeps having to forget the hell "down there", again and again, which is why Cause Celeb can't be a hit.

It would be unfair to my other books if I gave this lots of stars, but it's also unfair how few it has - guess that's due to fans of BJ, which in retrospect seems worse, because Fielding is smart and either caved in or talked down to all those who made chick lit into a genre.

ETA-THREE: Fielding addresses some of the issues that Geldof didn't in ITI, and that came up during or after Live Aid, e.g. the starving as monkey-men. There were more uncomfortable truths that on the flipside aren't that negative - mad bastards can rise to do good, and good people don't care less about trivial things under dire circumstances, to say so would be a lie - faced with hell on Earth small personal concerns can actually become accerbated.

ETA: not only readers but critics coming to this book belatedly seem to read it oddly slanted and plain wrong ... Muhammed is a great character, O'Rourke is not a hunk, that's the point, and there are some genuinely funny scenes in the camp (the purple dog and the fungus man) and a nerve-racking finale, a minor happy end against the backround of the reality of the situation. The sad end is how Fielding predicted BJ herself in these very pages, and how the world reacted to either.

I seriously didn't like any of the characters in this book. It was so hard to get through. It just didn't have any elements of true entertainment where I was really interested or wanted to know what happened in the end.

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5...

This is the first novel by Helen Fielding of Bridget Jones fame which she wrote in 1994. Surprisingly I never read until now. It is a satirical story full of both ridiculous and tragic events about what happens when celebrity aid comes to the help of famine relief in Africa. It is this angle that makes this novel more than just another chick lit type novel. It is I read a subject Helen Fielding is interested in and she has worked in producing documentaries for relief for such famines.
The heroine Rosie Richardson is living in London, working in publishing when we first meet her. After a disastrous relationship with Oliver Marchant a minor television celebrity who turns out to be cruel and manipulative she becomes disillusioned with her lifestyle. As a complete life change she heads for Africa to work as a Director of a refugee camp, for a charity. Four years later famine strikes and desperate for funds Rosie decides to use her celebrity acquaintances to raise emergency funds by organising a television appeal from the camp itself.
Towards the end of the novel the descriptions of the human suffering are powerful and disturbing. It is fourteen years since this novel was written and sadly many parts of the world are still suffering in such a way, despite worldwide campaigns to try and reduce such incidents.
I quote from the novel direct as I think it is an excellent reaction of the horrors as viewed by the aid workers and celebrities. ‘It was such a monumental horror that it felt as though nothing should be the same any more, nothing should continue: none of us should speak or do anything, the sun should not be moving across the sky and the wind should not blow. It did not seem possible that such a thing as this could be taking place without the world having to shudder to a halt and think again.’
This might start out seeming like a lightweight novel but it certainly does not leave you feeling that way at the end!

This was a very good read, and whoever wrote the blurb for it should be fired immediately.
This isn’t “hilarious” or a “spoof”.
There are humorous moments throughout, but a lot of darkness too..but it isn’t overdone or overly dramatic.

I picked up this book in a charity shop, and to be brutally honest didn't expect that much, I found the Bridget Jones books ok although I couldn't actually finish the last one as I got so frustrated with the writing style. This is one of Helen Fieldings earlier books and I found I quickly got absorbed into the story. I can see from the main character Rosie show how the idea of Bridget developed - wanting to do well in her career, gets caught up with Oliver who is an emotionally stunted controlling bully... Its a carefully woven story about celebrity, love and devastating heartbreak of famine in Africa, there really are some shocking parts in this book and its clear that a lot of research took place to paint a credible and realistic picture. I found myself laughing at some of the lines one minute and being on. The bring of tears the next. I just really enjoyed this book, didn't want to put it down and that says it all.

oh the boredom !!

If I'm reading chick lit I want chick lit. The author tried to put in way too much emotion for what was really a love story in the end. Also lots of characters that just didn't matter and never got developed.