Book Review: Mad About The Boy (Helen Fielding)

bridget-jones-mad-about-the-boy

Plot:    Fourteen years after landing Mark Darcy, Bridget’s life has taken her places she never expected. But despite the new challenges of single parenting, online dating, wildly morphing dress sizes, and bafflingly complex remote controls, she is the same irrepressible and endearing soul we all remember—though her talent for embarrassing herself in hilarious ways has become dangerously amplified now that she has 752 Twitter followers. As Bridget navigates head lice epidemics, school-picnic humiliations, and cross-generational sex, she learns that life isn’t over when you start needing reading glasses—and why one should never, ever text while drunk.
Studded with witty observations about the perils and absurdities of our times, Mad About the Boy is both outrageously comic and genuinely moving. As we watch her dealing with heartbreaking loss and rediscovering love and joy, Bridget invites us to fall for her all over again.

Rating: 6.5/10

My little reading challenge is progressing much better than my Blindspot 2016 challenge, and I am rapidly going through books. Touch wood, but so far I’ve enjoyed both the books I read. The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks was first to be finished, and not a bad read, and I finished Mad About the Boy last night.

I’m going to go on about the size a bit, because this book is too thick for what it is about. Reading about Twitter followers, nits, weight, fires and boy toys are entertaining for the first hundred pages, but it gets boring rather quickly. The book was running on fumes at the end, I was questioning Bridget’s parenting skills most harshly and the main event this book was so obviously hurtling towards was rushed within ten pages.

Mark Darcy’s death. This cat was let out of the bag the second the book was released hence I had no surprise when I finally read that it had happened. My feelings towards it? Shattered. He is a perfect literary character and his power only strengthened by the fact that Colin Firth portrayed him so well in the movie adaption. The sections where Bridget finally sits down and thinks of him is heart wrenching. I understand why the writer went that route – to bring a book out about Bridget it would either have to be after his death or after their divorce, and I will take his death before the thought that they could ever be divorced.

Bridget with too much money and children. Her relationship with her children was sweet and beautiful at stages, but I also questioned her parenting skills. I maintain that when you have children you are certainly allowed to still enjoy life, but never to a point where you don’t take care of the children you conceived. Ever. Male or female parents, I draw a firm line. You chose to raise a kid, you raise them. Okay, now that that is out of the way, I guess you can see that Bridget’s parenting did not sit too well for me.

Mr. Wallaker. Come on. Everyone could spot this a mile away.

The book is basically the first novel with some extras.

Weight: Yes

Obsessive eating: yes

Playboy: Daniel/Roxster

Eventual responsible love: Mark Darcy/MrWallaker

I didn’t hate the book. It is just not equal to the first. It has some funny and some sad and despite the size, it is an easy read.

Have you read the book? What did you think?

February 2016: Watched, Read, Loved

february

Welcome to a new little segment I want to start running monthly – just a rundown of whatever entertainment I found the most enjoyable the past month. I hope you enjoy!

In cinema:

The Fifth Wave: 7/10

I certainly enjoyed this more than most other trolls on the internet. While it isn’t a perfect film and feels at places that some ideas where snatched from other dystopian novels, it was entertaining and with a semi-solid cast.

Deadpool: 8/10

i.e. The film everyone had been waiting for for years, etc. It is rowdy, rude, sexual, violent and entertaining as hell. It is great to see a superhero movie that isn’t PG friendly. I’ve never understood why these superheroes could even be depicted as PG – they save the world and they are these happy, behaved and profanity ignorant people?

How To Be Single: 6.5/10

HTBS started off the 2016 romcom year, and it was a suprising movie. I never expected it to be groundbreaking or revolutionary, but the performances from Dakota Johnson and Rebel Wilson makes the movie enjoyable.

Wedding Crashers

At home:

Wedding Crashers: 8.5/10

This is my favorite movie watched in February. It was hilarious and I had the best time ever.

When Harry met Sally

Short on it the heels of Wedding Crashers, TBH. It is worthy of its iconic romcom status, and I’m glad I saw it for Drew and Kim’s 80’s blogathon – I think that is going down in March, so keep a lookout!

Kill Bill Volume I – 7.5/10

Hmm. THIS BLINDSPOT. It derailed so many plans of being perfect this year. I struggled to get a copy, finally got a DVD, THE DVD then didn’t work, and I was just done with life at that point. However, I’ve seen it now, and it was good, although not my favorite show.

arrow poster

Series:

Arrow Season 1

Hehe. I’m very passionate about this show, but not because it is good. I just like going on and on about how bad it is. Great conversation starter, let me tell you.

Arrow Season 2

Same as above

Longest ride

Books:

The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks

It was okay, though lacked the sensory pleasure the movie does because I thought Scott Eastwood was mighty fine in the adaption.

Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding

Finished this book in the time frame for Feb because of leap year. YAY! Book was good, entertaining, bit too long and very much like its’s first novel.

Hope you have an excellent March my friends! This is wedding month for so many people on my side, and I am pretty amped for them.

Reading Challenge for 2016 and what I’m currently reading

Everyone has challenges in the new year. Lose weight, find love of life, clean your room regularly, etc. While I completely share these dedications, I would also like to declare my dedications to my reading addiction this year. Below is a challenge I am going to take, and following that is the books I currently have that I want to finish. Comment, please!

readin list 2016

  1. A book published this year: The Glittering Court by Richelle Mead
  2. A book you can finish in a day: (still looking for one)
  3. A Book you’ve been meaning to read: The Ruby Circle by Richelle Mead
  4. A book recommended by a local librarian or bookseller: Brida by Paulo Coelho
  5. A book chosen by your BFF: BFF, tell me!
  6. A book published before you were born: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  7. A book that was banned at some point: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hossini
  8. A book you previously abandoned: Last Chance Saloon by Marian Keyes
  9. A Book you own but have never read: The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks
  10. A book that intimidates you: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
  11. A book you’ve read at least once: Emma by Jane Austen

Currently on my bookshelf waiting to be read:

  1. Currently reading: Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. I have so much love for this writer and the book at this point. Really having a fantastic time. I can’t read too much at a time, because the book simply has such big ideas.
  2. Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy by Helen Fielding. I really do love the original Bridget Jones, so quite interested to see what this is about.
  3. Brida by Paulo Coelho. Coelho is such an obscure, strange author. I’m never really sure what to make of his work.
  4. The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks. Oh, because I need cheese in my life.
  5. Live in Dreams by Josephine Cox. Started it and put it down again, but I will finish it just to be scathing.
  6. Indelible by Karin Slaughter. To continue the series.
  7. The Ruby Circle by Richelle Mead. Because it was a mad hunt to get a copy and I want to be able to say that I’m done with the series.

What are your reading plans for the year?