Book Review: Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding

 The wilderness years are over!

But for how long?

Bridget's second diary takes us through a year that begins with man-of-her-dreams Mark Darcy (who never does the washing up) and lurches onwards through a sea of self-help books and lunatic advice from her mad friends. Struggling with the challenges of a boyfriend-stealing beauty, an eight-foot hole in the wall and a builder obsessed with large reservoir fish, Bridget decides it's time for a spiritual epiphany. And so she departs Notting Hill for the sparkling shores of Thailand...

Bridget is back. V.g. 

A little 'disclaimer' before I get into it, you can skip this section - I realize that reading this book straight after reading the previous one in the series might have been a bad idea (and I'm currently reading the third book in the series, too, and that was an even worse idea) simply because the diary-talk and the writing style and the comedy etc. gets really, really boring and annoying to read. I also forgot entirely that I'm one of those people who just can't read a book right after another book that's too similar, so reading a book by the same writer in the same series falls in that category...which may mean this review is a little off and may need a tinkering with if I decide to read it again in the future. I'm also writing this quite a while after I had actually finished the book. I procrastinate even in my hobbies! 

With that being said, I want to start with the issue about this book that has been bothering me the most, and that's feminism. The whole tone of that topic within both the previous book and this book is mocking and is pretty difficult to take seriously. If is serious, it's a huge misconception on what feminism really is. I have a feeling the mocking tone might have been done just for the sake of humor, and in some cases it worked (barely, but it did). Don't even get me started on Sharon-the-man-hating-feminist. I still love her, I think she's feisty and badass and her rants are funny, but they would have been funny without the man-hating. 

Also, the relationship between her and Mark is very childish from my point of view. They broke up because of Bridget having a misunderstanding about Rebecca, also caused by gossip and bad advice from her friends, and Mark's inability to communicate what he's thinking and being able to fight for something...in real life, there was a pretty high chance Bridget could have been gone forever over a misunderstanding and if he really did love and want her as much as we were told we should believe, why didn't he fight for her. Well, I suppose he did...way way later in the book, and maybe because I'm only an eighteen year old girl, I don't really understand adult relationships and maybe that's why I believe this to be immature. Maybe it was just portrayed badly and it was just trying to show how Mark made her feel like a teenager again, and that's why she was acting like one. I'll try to remember to re-read this when I'm single in my thirties. 

This is just me being kinda picky with the way it's setup, I suppose, but why is she writing in her diary during situations an ordinary person wouldn't even be on their phone in, and how is she writing in it. My memory is bad and it's been a while since I read it, so I can't really give you an example from this copy but there is just a lot of situations where she picks up the diary and writes full paragraphs and I have no idea how. 

Also, the plot line. I have no idea how the book got to be as big as it did. Most of it must have been a filler. The actual excitement didn't happen until much, much later. Even then, it wasn't that exiting, it was also kinda confusing. Did they let her keep her diary and her pen but they took everything else from her, and didn't let her have it until the day afterwards? Why was everyone else in the cell not allowed a bra, but she was? How did they get their hands on cigarettes? I'm sure she did plenty of research about this before she wrote it, I'm just in-educated on how Thailand jail cells work. It's a shame the writer didn't use that as an opportunity to teach people about it. 

Sorry, sorry...this book review has turned into a rant about it, rather than the actual book itself. I did actually enjoy this book, and I would recommend it as a light read just for it's comedy value but I just don't think any of it's filling is outstanding. Thanks for reading!