Bridget Jones,
funny as ever
Amy Scribner |
BookPage® - November 2013
Bridget
Jones aficionados will be thrilled that, after 14 years, there is a new
installment about the adventures of this irrepressible British woman
with a zest for life and wine.
They may be less enthused to find out that Bridget is no longer with her
love Mark Darcy (played to perfection—and with a wink to Pride
and Prejudice—by Colin Firth in the movie). I won’t ruin things
by explaining exactly why Bridget is single again. Suffice it to say,
she is heartbroken, and must hold things together for her two young
children.
In Bridget Jones: Mad
About the Boy, Bridget is starting over again in a dating world that
has moved mostly online. Like the previous Bridget books, this one is
written as Bridget’s scribbled journal entries, but she now also
Tweets (often drunkenly) and texts (also drunkenly). “The fantastic
thing about texting is that it allows you to have an instant, intimate
emotional relationship without taking up any time whatsoever or
involving meetings or arrangements or any of the complicated things
which take place in the boring old non-cyber world,” Bridget muses
without a trace of irony.
Some things never change: Bridget’s raucous old pals Tom and Jude are
still around, as funny and loyal as ever, and Daniel Cleaver,
Bridget’s old fling and godfather to her children, makes a few
appearances to toss some of his trademark double entendres her way. But
Helen Fielding, to her credit, has evolved Bridget from a navel-gazing
30-something whose biggest worry was caloric intake to a (fairly)
responsible mother who is lonely and overwhelmed. It’s not surprising
that Bridget Jones:
Mad About the Boy is
deeply funny and compulsively readable. What is unexpected is how
poignant it is in its exploration of love, loss and the courage to try
again.
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