Bridget Jones's Diary (Bridget Jones, #1)

by Helen Fielding

[Leah]

Bridget Jones worries about a lot of things, her weight, her job, her lack of a boyfriend and the amount of calories she consumes each day. As a late twenty-something, the pressure is on for Bridget to find a man and settle down, particularly as her family keep thrusting Mark Darcy upon her. Bridget, however, is in love with her boss Daniel Cleaver and it appears that he likes her, too. However, the relationship doesn’t run as smoothly as you might expect and there are a lot of ups and downs. Is Daniel the man for Bridget or could it be Mark Darcy?

Although I’ve heard about Bridget Jones’s Diary and seen at least one of the films (or maybe both – I can’t remember either of them, though) I’ve never actually gotten around to reading the book. Which, according to some people, appears to be sacrilege. It just never took my fancy, no matter how much people raved about the book. I know, also, that it helped launch the genre I read so much of: chick lit, but again it never appealed. However after hearing how much Rhiana enjoyed it – and trusting her opinion, I finally picked myself up a copy and decided to give it a read.

I have to admit, that hours later, I’m failing to see what all of the fuss was about. I have got absolutely no idea why anyone thinks this is an example of good chick lit because, to be blunt, it’s not. It might have been back when it was first released – in the 90′s – but it doesn’t seem to have aged well and there are tons of chick lit books I would place ahead of Bridget Jones’s Diary. On the front of my copy, Nick Hornby says Helen Fielding is ‘one of the funniest writers in Britain’ but I didn’t laugh once. Not at all. I have a very simple sense of humour but I didn’t find Bridget Jones’s Diary amusing in any way at all.

I thought the book was just plain annoying. For the first few diary entries, Bridget’s weight and calories consumed and cigarettes/alcohol units was interesting but it soon became very dull and I just skipped those points completely. Mainly due to the fact that Bridget keeps saying it’s ‘bad’ that she’s – gasp – 9 stone. The fact of the matter is 9 stone isn’t fat. At all. Unless you’re really really short and Bridget just comes across as another thin woman thinking she’s fat and it gets really irritating after a while to hear her moan and whinge about putting on a pound. I understand weight insecurities, don’t get me wrong, but neurotic doesn’t even cover Bridget. Any person over 9 stone reading this book will want to bash Bridget’s head against a wall while simultaneously chucking away everything in their fridge because it’s as if anything over 9 stone is horrifically obese.

I know a lot of women really love Bridget, but I really couldn’t see her appeal. From her neuroses about her weight to her shallowness and vapidity, I just couldn’t warm to her. All I did whilst reading the book was tolerated her because I had to; because she was the narrator. I didn’t even really much like Bridget’s parents either, in particular her mother. She wasn’t particularly nice and her mid-life crisis (or whatever it was) was rather strange and she didn’t really come across at all well. As for Bridget’s dad I just thought he was a bit wet. As for the men in Bridget’s life, I thought Daniel Cleaver was a rather nasty piece of work and was totally undeserving of Bridget. I may not have liked her, but I certainly didn’t want her to end up with that idiot. I quite liked Mark Darcy, in fact he was probably my favourite character of the entire book, although I would have liked him to appear a bit more.

Bridget Jones’s Diary isn’t really that well written either – sure, I managed to read it in a fairly quick amount of time but that was only because I wanted it to end. I suppose the main problem with the writing is that Bridget just spends the entire book whinging and moaning. It’s rather relentless not to mention the idiots her girl friends go out with. They all seemed rather doomed from the start to be honest. In fact, thinking back, the book is just plain boring. All about men, her weight, her job… and in the end, it’s as if everything’s just going around in circles.

I think the main reason a lot of people liked Bridget Jones is because it was the only book of its kind back when it was first released, hence the huge hype. I think it’s definitely an over-hyped book and I think it’s place as a classic chick lit book is more because it was the first than because it’s a genuine chick lit classic. There are many better books in the chick lit genre and it’s clear to see that the writing now compared to the 90s is just so much better and, for me, Bridget Jones’s Diary lags far far behind.