Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding:
No. of times cried: 2.5 (the 0.5 was tears welling, not spilling)
No. of chocolate bars consumed: 2
No. of times laughed out loud: eleventy bazillion
No. of Twitter followers: 518
No. of times I thought “I love Bridget”: eleventy bazillion
No. of perfectly fitting endings for Bridget: 1
No. of scenes where I thought Bridget and I would be best mates IRL: eleventy bazillion (especially the nits bits)
4.5/5 Yes, shortest most useless review ever but to all the haters*, too bad, Fielding rules. The third installment for Bridget is brilliant (yes, even though it’s true that Mark Darcy is dead).
Enjoy Mad About the Boy with grated cheese straight from the bag.
*mostly those people that gave it one star on Goodreads without actually reading the book.
Ooh, interesting – yours is the only positive review I’ve read so far! I’m definitely going to read it myself, & am keeping an open mind 🙂
I think keeping an open mind is the important thing – I really enjoyed it and was convinced that Fielding wouldn’t kill Mark Darcy off and then leave us all hanging.
I figure if people finished Edge of Reason thinking that’s the end for Bridget, then fine, leave it there and be quiet about it – I don’t understand all the negativity around this third book. Fielding is one of the founders of chick-lit and her style is still wonderfully authentic, her characters fantastic and her dialogue brilliant.
Hope you enjoy it!
Sold!
Killing off Mark Darcy – was it as earth shattering as killing off Dr Patrick in Offspring?
On a par!
I don’t know when I’ll read this, but I will someday. I think. If I’m going to read chick-lit, I might as well go with the original.
Love your review!
Thanks! It was a fun read.
What a great review – I will read this but the publicity leak about Mark Darcy being dead annoyed me! Glad you enjoyed it (I’m sure I will too)
I wasn’t a fan of the leak either but you do find out he’s dead within the first chapter – had I not been prepared for it, it would have been SHOCKING!
So, I confess… I really didn’t like the first book. I think I may have read it when I was too young but I’ve always wanted to try reading it again because they’re so well-loved. Your love of this one makes me want to try again even more now. 🙂
I suspect being the right age has a lot to do with Bridget – I am (slightly) younger than Bridget but when the first book was released it was SO MUCH MY LIFE and my friends’ lives.
It seems odd now but Fielding’s style was unique at the time – she moved chick-lit away from the Shirley Conran style stuff to this modern, ‘normal’ girl theme (which has since been done to death). It wasn’t until I read the third book that I realised just how much Fielding’s style shaped and was influenced by the language of of my peers. And really, Bridget is so perfect for Twitter 😉
Yeah I think I was like… nineteen when I read it? I have a feeling it’d be much more relatable. The red squiggle informs me that is not a word, but you know what I mean. lol
Relatable is a word now 😉
Works for me. 🙂
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Well! I’ve just finished this book and really enjoyed it. I was less than enthusiastic about it when it was released, as I didn’t like “The Edge of Reason” at all – I felt like Bridget’s character didn’t really develop in any meaningful way throughout the book. But thanks to this review and a thoughtful Christmas present, I gave it a go. I was so pleasantly surprised by the story and really enjoyed all the parenting disasters – nits, gastro, nothing appropriate to wear for any occasion, running the gauntlet at school pick-up … BUT I’ll be forever sad that Mark Darcy is no more. Will just have to go back and read the first book … or read Pride and Prejudice, or even better, watch BBC Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth … with a glass of wine and a bag of grated cheese, perhaps?
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