From Powells.com
Bridget Jones is the character that Helen Fielding invented to record
the trials and tribulations of being a single woman in her thirties, adding
a reworking of Jane
Austen's Pride
and Prejudice to hilarious result.
Bridget Jones's Diary was
a nationwide phenomenon both in the States as well as in Fielding's native
England and for good reason. Fielding hits a chord with nearly
every woman by brilliantly satirizing Bridget's insecurities about weight,
desirability, and her eternal struggle to find a happy balance between
career and love. Actually, finding a love life to be happy about is one
of Bridget's major ambitions.
And when she's not dealing with her lambasting mother from suburban hell,
who ups and leaves Bridget's father for a smooth talking latin type, Bridget
is drinking too much Chardonnay with her best pals discussing Jude's commitment-phobe
boyfriend, Vile Richard. Bridget's diary covers a year in the life, ranging
from dinners with her "smug married" friends to the horrors of communal
changing rooms, comparing the latest self-help advice to drunkenly ranting
feminism in her favorite bars. Fielding is a smart and funny writer. Bridget
encompasses the qualities of your best girlfriend, who commits the embarrassing
mistakes you hope never to make, while causing you to laugh out loud again
and again.
Synopses & Reviews
Bridget Jones's Diary charts a devastatingly self-aware, hilarious year in the life of a thirty-something Singleton. Here is the daily chronicle of her permanent, doomed quest for self-improvement - a year in which she resolves to: reduce the circumference of each thigh by 1 1/2 inches, visit the gym three times a week not merely to buy a sandwich, form a functional relationship with a responsible adult, and not fall for any of the following: misogynists, megalomaniacs, people with girlfriends or wives, emotional fuckwits, alcoholics, workaholics, chauvinists, or perverts. And learn to program the VCR. Bridget struggles to keep her life on an even keel - or at least afloat. Whenever her plans meet with disaster, as they invariably do, she manages to pick herself up, go out on the town, and tell herself it will be all right in the morning, when life will definitely be different this time. Bridget Jones's Diary will make you like yourself for precisely those things you're most ashamed of.
Review
"The juicy diary tells the truth with a verve as appealing to men on Mars as it is to Venusian women." Entertainment Weekly
Review
"Newspaper columnist Fielding's first effort, a bestseller in Britain, lives up to the hype. This year in the life of a single woman is closely observed and laugh-out-loud funny....Fielding's diarist raises prickly insecurities to an art form, turns bad men into good anecdotes, and shows that it is possible to have both a keen eye for irony and a generous heart." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Bridget Jones is channeling something so universal and (horrifyingly) familiar that readers will giggle and sigh with collective delight." Elle
Review
"Unforgettably droll" Newsweek