Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason – Helen Fielding (2001)

Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding

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The second entry in the Bridget Jones books and it takes what’s ridiculous and goofy about the first one and really adds in some more. What I do really about this book is similar to something I really like about Nick Hornby’s “High Fidelity” implied by the movie “The Graduate” which is that romantic comedies are great and all, but what happens after? Well, “High Fidelity” has another 100 pages or so, and this book is the sequel to the romantic comedy and is about […]

Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding (1996)

Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

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There are some significant ways in which this book feels like an artifact. For one, it and the movie are obviously iconic. The movie came out when I was in college, and I didn’t know anything about the book at the time, so I was a little confused about the hype of the movie, not realizing the book and its sequel were so beloved. It’s also an artifact of both the 1990s book culture centered in London, the same culture that gets lampooned a little […]

Bring back the old Bridget

Bridget Jones' Baby by Helen Fielding

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The first Bridget Jones book is one of my favourites- Bridget is flawed and funny but also still realistic enough to be relatable.  With each successive Bridget book, the realistic part fades a little more, meaning that Bridget’s Baby is a light, frothy read untethered to story lines that might actually happen. The plot here is exactly what you would expect if you’ve read the earlier Bridget installments or even just watched the movies, and then extrapolated from the title- within a short span of […]

Durr, that Mr. Darcy

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When I was in my 20s I adored Bridget Jones’s Diary and the sequel. I haven’t read either of them in a long time, but I picked up the first to fill my “The Book was Better?” square. Bridget Jones’s Diary hasn’t aged well, in many respects. Bridget monitors her weight obsessively and freaks out any time it goes above 128 pounds, which is laughable. She smokes like a chimney. There’s the line about the Japanese being “a very cruel race.” But in other ways […]

Oh baby

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  I picked up Bridget Jones’ baby on a whim while on a 6-hour layover. After the behemoth that was the Southern Reach trilogy I needed something light and fun. And this book was both. I don’t think I’ve read all three previous Bridget Jones books but that didn’t matter. I gathered pretty quickly that Bridget used to be engaged to Mark and that they broke off the engagement because of Daniel Cleaver. This takes place five years later. Bridget is single and about to […]

Speaking of mindless entertainment!

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I probably shouldn’t have liked this as much as I did. The plot was silly, the characters have turned into caricatures, and since it takes place BEFORE the last book that I read in the series, there wasn’t much suspense. But dammit, Jones, I do love you. 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. Bridget sleeps with Mark & Daniel within the […]



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