November’s Book Club – Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy by Helen Fielding
Jonathan Cape, October 2013.
Book Corner is our monthly online book club.
How it works…
We love books and we love chatting about them even more. Every month, we pick a new book for discussion. We will post a question to kick things off and then you can talk about any of your thoughts about the book in the comments box below. The best thing about our book club is that EVERYONE CAN TAKE PART. It’s open to all. You can read the book at any point in the month or if you’ve already read it, tell us what you think.
This month, our pick is Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy by Helen Fielding.
About the book:
Is it morally wrong to have a blow-dry when one of your children has head lice?
Is technology now the fifth element? Or is that wood?
Is sleeping with someone after 2 dates and 6 weeks of texting the same as getting married after 2 meetings and 6 months of letter writing in Jane Austen’s day?
Pondering these, and other modern dilemmas, Bridget Jones stumbles through the challenges of single-motherhood, tweeting, texting and rediscovering her sexuality in what SOME people rudely and outdatedly call ‘middle age’.
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy is available from most major bookstores or you can click here to buy from Amazon.
What did you think of this book? Tell us below (please note that there will be spoilers.)
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About Novel Kicks/Laura...
Novel Kicks was founded in 2009 and is run by Laura who is currently living in Hampshire, and lives with husband, Chris and her cat, Buddy. She would love to be a writer. She’s trying to write the novel she thinks so much about. She’s loved reading and writing since ‘Creative Writing’ classes in primary school. When not trying to write the novel or writing snippets of stories on anything she can get her hands on, she loves reading, dancing like a loon, and watching Project Runway and Ugly Betty (her two TV guilty pleasures.) She also has an obsession with chocolate and Jammie Dodgers.
Novel Kicks was founded in 2009 and is run by Laura who is currently living in Hampshire, and lives with husband, Chris and her cat, Buddy. She would love to be a writer. She’s trying to write the novel she thinks so much about. She’s loved reading and writing since ‘Creative Writing’ classes in primary school. When not trying to write the novel or writing snippets of stories on anything she can get her hands on, she loves reading, dancing like a loon, and watching Project Runway and Ugly Betty (her two TV guilty pleasures.) She also has an obsession with chocolate and Jammie Dodgers.
10 Responses to November’s Book Club – Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy by Helen Fielding
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Also, Daniel clever is the kids godfather?? Sorry what? Was that just to bring clever back in to the story in some way?? Can’t just change how we felt about someone from the previous book to being completely diffrent, Marc hated him yet now they just made up without anymore detail? Yet another terrible decision made by fielding. ….she also should have proof read it better “took gulp of red bull……spit coke in sink” or did bridget also become a magician??
I agree with you. It was the one part of the book I didn’t gel with. He just seemed to be there because Mark wasn’t.
I just finished it, and am totally disappointed. It was predictable from the start….more specifically, predictable from the tree climbing incident. Suspect fielding only killed off the character we all loved, Marc Darcy, to make a new story….to make more money. It made bridget pathetic. And how are all her friends still at the same stages of their lives?? Nobody else had really moved on in 30years? And there were far too many mentions of the previous book.
Did you hear Renee Zellweger with everything said in the novel? I did and liked it, weirdly. I originally hated her as the character, because she’s AMERCIAN, why couldn’t they get a British actor? But reading this, I realised I now like her at BJ.
I did. I did prefer her portrayal of Bridget more in the first film though. I felt the first film was better overall actually – it contained more of the spirit of the book if that makes sense.
I’ve just finished this book and I know it got a number of negative reviews when it first came out but I have to say that I loved catching up with Bridget. It was like spending time with a dear old friend and I found it funny and often incredibly moving. It lacked the easy humour of the previous two books at times because it had to deal with Bridget’s grief and the trauma of life alone with two small children but I found this engaging and believable. Spending time with Bridget is always a pleasure and never a chore and although it wasn’t perfect, it still contained episodes of hilarity that we’ve come to expect from our chaotic heroine along with some very moving and profound moments.
I felt the same. There was a lot of humour in the first two books that wasn’t in this book. It felt a lot more grown up but the Bridget we know and love was still there.
What was your reaction when you read about Mark’s fate? I was shocked and annoyed (as I love Mark) but I understood the decision once I got to the end. What are your thoughts?
Exactly the same. It was so sad, he was such a great character, but she had to do it. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been a story really, it would have been more of the same. Sad but necessary.
Necessary to make a story….I think fielding just killed him off so she could make more money. Cashing in on the love story, just to destroy it. *sad face* I felt it made bridget seem pathetic. I’m going to pretend I didn’t read that book and just end it in my head with Marc being alive.