Hey guys! It is once again time for this weeks' book review. As many of you will know, Helen Fielding has recently released the long awaited latest edition to the Bridget Jones series. In this new book, Bridget is 49/50 and an awful lot has happened since the end of the last book. This review contains spoilers simply because there is too much important content that needs discussed that I can't generalize.
As I mentioned, Bridget is now in her late 40's and has had 2 children, Billy and Mabel, with Mark Darcy. However, tragically, Mark was killed 4 years prior to the start of the book by an IED abroad while fighting a case for rights campaigners (or something.) Now, this is a pretty contentious plot twist and I know that Helen Fielding has got a lot of stick for killing off Darcy, but- as much as it pains me that Mark died, it does instantly bring in a very personal level of sorrow as you see just how awful 'bumbling Bridget's' life has become. The book begins in April of 2013 but shortly rewinds back to April 2012 in a sort of 'here's how I got to this stage of my life' flashback. Obviously it's all done through diary form and despite the obviously traumatic themes of the book, it still captures the original humour and I was laughing out loud regularly.
I quite liked the way the time jump worked as once Bridget had caught you up to April 2013 again, the book continues to December 2013. The main theme running through is showing how Bridget moves on from the trauma of losing Mark and shows her various disastrous dating attempts. She is still aided by Jude, Tom, and Talitha from Sit Up Britain and Daniel makes several appearances which I'm so glad of because he is a wonderful character and his attempts of taking care of Mabel and Billy on several babysitting ventures were very, very amusing.
I'm not actually going to spoil the ending, but I do want to say that I totally 'called' who she ends up with from about page 50, but it doesn't detract from the novel at all. I genuinely think Fielding deals extremely well with the book, considering there are obviously themes of death, as well as depression, addiction and adultery and none of the themes are used for comic affect, they simply make the humour more of a rest from the sadness that Bridget is understandably feeling.
As a side note, Mabel and Billy are genuinely hilarious, and the portrayal of Bridget's mothering skills and their family life is general is so so relatable. The book is laugh out loud funny but I also found myself tearing up on more than one occasion, and I might actually prefer this version to the original! There is a danger of this book being categorised as a 'holiday read' but it is so so much more than that, and I cannot recommend it enough!
Plot: 9/10
Characters: 10/10
Overall: 10/10
I was incredibly lucky with the books I picked to read on holiday, so a lot of the reviews coming up will be incredibly complimentary, and rightly so! I once again appear to be on track to have all the promised blogposts up this week, so I should be back on Tuesday with another Top Ten Tuesday!
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