Bridget Jones's Baby by Helen Fielding

Bridget Jones's Baby: The Diaries by Helen Fielding
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - <4 hours

Pages - 219

Blurb from Goodreads

Bridget Jones, beloved Singleton and global phenomenon, is back with a bump in Bridget Jones's Baby: The Diaries.
8:45 P.M. Realize there have been so many times in my life when have fantasized about going to a scan with Mark or Daniel: just not both at the same time.
Before motherhood, before marriage, Bridget with biological clock ticking very, very loudly, finds herself unexpectedly pregnant at the eleventh hour: a joyful pregnancy which is dominated, however, by a crucial but terribly awkward question who is the father? Mark Darcy: honourable, decent, notable human rights lawyer? Or Daniel Cleaver: charming, witty, notable fuckwit?
9:45 PM It s like they re two halves of the perfect man, who ll spend the rest of their lives each wanting to outdo the other one. And now it s all enacting itself in my stomach.
In this gloriously funny, touching story of baby-deadline panic, maternal bliss, and social, professional, technological, culinary and childbirth chaos, Bridget Jones global phenomenon and the world s favorite Singleton is back with a bump."



My Review

We all know my feelings on book 3, Mad About The Boy, so it was lovely to head back to a nicer time and in this book we find Bridget, Mark and Daniel again in another "relationship" nightmare. Bridget has a dalliance with each of the boys, one night only resulting in a pregnancy, having no idea which is the father, the three try to work together to get through the pregnancy. As always, told in diary format Bridget catalogs the hilarious trials and tribulations from the run up to pregnancy, coping with the boys and being pregnant and how it impacts her whole life really!

This is one of the few times I preferred the movie to the book, the film is my fav of them all but I did still enjoy the book. The movie sees the introduction of a billionaire and Cleaver is not around however the book stays true to the characters and we have the age old competitive rivalry between the two men, Darcy and Cleaver.

The tale opens written to the baby with Bridget explaining he will hear the story anyway so she would rather hear it from her and her diary entries. Considering some of the content, probably not what I would leave for my kid, some of Cleaver's attitude will quite probably offend some readers however he was always a cad so it isn't really anything new. Timeline wise, this one is set before Mad About The Boy and if you haven't read it I personally would by pass it. Also if you haven't seen the movie, go check it out, absolutely brilliant. 3/5 for me this time, it is always nice to catch up with Bridg especially when all is right in the world of regular characters!

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Review - Bridget Jones Mad About The Boy by Helen Fielding

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 5 days

Pages - 386

Publisher - Jonathan Cape

Blurb from Goodreads

What do you do when your girlfriend’s sixtieth birthday party is the same day as your boyfriend’s thirtieth?

Is it better to die of Botox or die of loneliness because you’re so wrinkly?

Is it wrong to lie about your age when online dating?

Is it morally wrong to have a blow-dry when one of your children has head lice?

Is it normal to be too vain to put on your reading glasses when checking your toy boy for head lice?

Does the Dalai Lama actually tweet or is it his assistant?

Is it normal to get fewer followers the more you tweet?

Is technology now the fifth element? Or is that wood?

If you put lip plumper on your hands do you get plump hands?

Is sleeping with someone after two dates and six weeks of texting the same as getting married after two meetings and six months of letter writing in Jane Austen’s day?

Pondering these and other modern dilemmas, Bridget Jones stumbles through the challenges of loss, single motherhood, tweeting, texting, technology, and rediscovering her sexuality in—Warning! Bad, outdated phrase approaching!—middle age.


My Review

Oh how I have missed Bridget! I have read the previous two books and watched the movies countless times so I couldn't wait for this book. Sadly I had heard the spoiler, which incase you have not, I will not repeat here. This of course gave me a heads up I may not enjoy the book but I decided to go in with an open attitude approach, since I had left it on the tbr for a long time.

We open in 2013, 18th of April & it is a Thursday. She is true to form sticking to the diary format and upon reading the first page, the reader, isn't disappointed, well I wasn't. Bridget is dating again, only this time she is in her fifty first year and the object of her affection is Roxster, thirty years old, fit, lean, young and utterly attractive. Whilst trying to keep her diary up to date, she is juggling a toyboy, two young children, trying to follow dating rules, not focus on the past, learn twitter & texting etiquette, keep her weight in check and get the kids to school in one piece. The introduction also gives the reader a headsup briefly to Mark Darcy. We then head back, to one year ago and the build up to present day, Bridgets trials and tribulations, done in a humerous or frank entry to her diary.

The first few pages and chapters, it was like sliding into your old favourite slippers. Bridget is humerous, bumbling her way through one mishap after another. Never fitting into that perfect sized dress, focusing on her weght loss and often failing to maintain her weight. However, once I got into it I noticed, quickly, that Bridget had changed to quite a different person. She still has the humour and I don't mean her age rather, just about every thing else. Her circumstances have completely changed she is not focused on her job pursuits in the way she has done previously. Her home and financial situation again has completely changed and I, for one, found that something I could relate to previously.

I think bringing children into the story was a downside, Bridget is still scatty and trying to impress the male species fumbling through dating, with two children it just didn't seem right with the added background. Sorry to be vague but I hate spoiler reviews. Of course parents date but Bridget has quite a unique take and recent sadness that it just didn't fit. There seemed to be two themes for me, the original funny Bridget trying to do all the things, with the addition of mother duties now, and a serious theme that, whilst not the main focus, certainly brings the overall feeling down. Even Daniel Cleaver, who still is a naughty boy in a mans body is still in the story, however even he has some adult catastrophy issues that ruined so much. You can't do heavy themes like that in a comedy, well I don't think you can and I don't think it had its place in Bridget Jones.

I would love to reach out to Fielding and beg her to make this book a Dallas moment, you know when Bobby was magically in the shower as it was all a dream. Make book four about Bridget and Marks wedding and all the silliness that can and does go wrong. The inlaws, cousins from abroad, families meeting and clashing, the dress disasters, I imagine it to be something like bridesmaids but funnier and all about Bridget.

I think the one thing we all loved about Bridget was her likeability, how we could relate to her, imagine ourselves doing all the silliness she does. This book was just so far removed from our original Bridget and her ordinary circumstances it really pulled the book down for me. I thought I would hate the book, I didn't but I disliked it for a lot more reasons than just the change in Bridgets relationship status. 2/5 for me this time, would I read another Bridget Jones diary? If the third one was disgarded as a dream and we go back to Bridget in her 30s, where we left her, then yes I would. Otherwise I think no, it was just too sad in some parts although I did enjoy reading the diary entries and Bridget trying to grasp dating, twitter and other disasters.

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