Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

This particular review contains spoilers so if you don't want the book to be spoiled then look away now.

I was lucky enough to see Helen Fielding talking at the Manchester LiteraryFestival a few weeks ago just after the latest Bridget Jones came out.  I grabbed a copy of Mad About the Boy from the pop up Waterstones outside the venue and started the book as soon as I got home.

Now I'm not all that sentimental about Bridget Jones, I'm from the second wave of readers, current twenty-somethings who've come to the books a bit later.  I wasn't waiting for the columns in The Independent each week because I had different priorities at that time (like whether I set the VCR in time to tape The Spice Girls on whatever TV programme they happened to be on that week).  I even saw the films before I read the books!  I know!  What sort of a person am I?

It's for this reason that I didn't seem as distressed as everyone else on the internet was when they heard that Mark Darcy had died and Bridget would be a single mum in this book.  Yeah, of course, it'll be a little bit sad I thought but it won't be that big a deal.  Boy was I wrong, and I'm not even attached to Mark Darcy.

The book, just like Fielding in person, is funny.  Not just as in an occasional smile here and there but actually laugh out loud funny and I love that.  However, every time Bridget started mentioning how sad she was that Mark wasn't there, I just sort of thought Yeah, I am too.  And I just don't get why it had to happen.  I know that the first couple of Bridget Jones books were about being a single 30 something looking for love but just because that's the main theme of the first 2 books, I don't see why it had to be the main theme of the third one.  It could've been a funny book about Bridget in a happy marriage in her 50s.  I know it's probably harder to come up with fun storylines for that but couldn't that have been part of the challenge?  But it's not my book, they're not my characters and it's up to Helen Fielding what she wants to do with them.

There are two main love interests in the book, Roxster and Mr Wallaker.  Roxster is a 29 year old who Bridget meets over Twitter and begins to fall in love with him.  He's sweet and charming but also ends up being confused by this relationship with an older woman though their relationship does take up most of the book.  

Mr Wallaker is totally different to Roxster.  He's a teacher at Bridget's son's school and it very proper and British and stiff upper lip and barely any of the book is spent on his and Bridget's relationship.  It's just sort of plopped on right at the end with Bridget realising that she's madly in love with him during the Christmas carol concert, even though they've barely spoken to each other and haven't been on a single date.  In fact, such little time is spent with Mr Wallaker that I'm probably more invested in Bridget's relationship with Roxster.  

All in all the book is a nice enough read.  It's not the same as the earlier ones because the ghost of Mark Darcy is present throughout and so I felt that Bridget is only ever going to be looking for a replacement.  However, it is a good read, I enjoyed it and it's funny.  I do think that perhaps I might not have enjoyed it as much as the other ones because I'm not yet at the point in my life that Bridget's at.  There are doubtless moments in the book where mums up and down the country will be nodding and laughing along and saying "Yes, that is exactly what it's like at the school gates/at the annual concert/at Barbara and Gavin's Christmas parties".

So maybe I'll re-read this book when I'm a bit older, but I'm still glad that I read it.  I love it when a book can make you laugh and Bridget's done just that yet again.

One sentence back cover quote

Bridget's back and funny as ever but life's changed an awful lot.

Buy Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy at Waterstones