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    Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
    Unavailable
    Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
    Unavailable
    Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
    Audiobook11 hours

    Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

    Written by Helen Fielding

    Narrated by Samantha Bond

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Bridget Jones, the iconic character who sold 15 million books worldwide, inspired a major motion picture franchise, and became beloved as a Chardonnay-swilling everywoman, is back in this hotly anticipated third installment.

    Set in contemporary London, the new novel brings us Bridget in a new phase of life.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateOct 15, 2013
    ISBN9780804148771
    Unavailable
    Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
    Author

    Helen Fielding

    Helen Fielding was born in Yorkshire. She worked for many years in London as a newspaper and TV journalist, travelling as wildly and as often as possible to Africa, India and Central America. She is the author of Cause Celeb, Bridget Jones's Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination, and Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy. She co-wrote the screenplays for the movies of Bridget Jones's Diary and The Edge of Reason, starring Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant. She now works full-time as a novelist and screenwriter and lives in London and Los Angeles.

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    Reviews for Bridget Jones

    3.5/5

    379 ratings42 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Bridget Jones as a widow is an upsetting proposition. But get past that and it's not a terrible book, just not nearly as silly and hilarious as the first two.
    • 3/5
      From my Cannonball Read V Review...

      I was trying to figure out how to write this review without spoiling the book (beyond the whole Mark is dead thing, which is not a spoiler, but instead the whole premise of the book). Most of what bothered me about the book involves pretty specific plot lines, but I'm going to try to get through the review by speaking at a general level. However, if you want to read the book and don't want to know ANYTHING about the plot, maybe just stop reading at the end of this paragraph. I'll TL:DR it for you: pretty entertaining, retreads much of the same ground from the first two books, Bridget does seem like Bridget still (but older), worth downloading in e-version or checking out of the library for a quick read.

      Alright, the longer, slightly spoiler-y stuff. So Bridget is 51 in the book. For those of you who were introduced to her via the movie, that sounds too old, but I think the time line is based on the original books, but even so it's not that far off as the first move came out TWELVE YEARS AGO.

      Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

      Overview:
      As stated above, we're visiting Bridget over a decade down the road, and four years after Mark has died, leaving her a widow with a young son and a three-month-old daughter. I noticed this comment when Pajiba originally reported the news, from Sara_Tonin00 "There's a decent romcom to be made about a young widow trying to figure out how to date again - but I don't think it's about Bridget Jones." To that person I would say this works better than I thought it would, but that's not to say that it's groundbreaking or earth shattering. It's a pleasant book, and to me it strikes true to the Bridget we've gotten to know in the first couple of books: still self-centered but not much more so than most folks seem to be these days.

      The high points:
      She doesn't utterly forget about her children; they aren't like Emma in "Friends," they serve more than just a plot twist every few chapters. In fact I actually came to care for them. They aren't angels but they aren't devils; I don't have children of my own but my experience with my nieces seems to fit. And while the children certainly feature in the book, Bridget still has experiences that aren't entirely about them.

      I also think that Ms. Fielding does a good job (as far as I can say, not having experienced the death of a spouse) of capturing how, as time passes, sure the grief isn't top of mind all the time, but it's there, and can pop up as easily at a mundane event as during the holidays. I think it made sense to set the book well after the death so it's not so much about getting through every day but instead about getting through life and what Bridget wants it to include since it can no longer include Mark.

      Most of the same folks figure in this book, so it's fun to see how the past few years have been treating them. I especially enjoyed catching up with Daniel, who surprisingly does make an appearance. The writing was also pretty good - I started on Monday night (the benefit of being on the west coast - it came through on my Kindle just after 9PM) and finished up Thursday at lunch, and it only took that long because I had a bunch of stuff to do on Tuesday and Wednesday evening. I am traveling this week and wish I had saved it because I know it would have made the flight go faster.

      The low points:
      Yes, the book now incorporates Twitter and OK Cupid (woo, up to the minute technology!) but so much of it seems like a retread of the previous books. Obviously there are only so many different ways to talk about searching for love but, without spoiling anything, a lot of the book seems VERY familiar, and I was able to (accurately) imagine the last page of the book a few chapters in.

      There's also a storyline about her being fat, and I get that Ms. Fielding was looking for a total transformation / look what's happened but COME ON. That's a pretty lazy writing device, and also offensive to anyone who is, well, fat, because fat is a substitute here for letting everything go. Fat isn't bad, isn't even necessarily unhealthy, and the fact that once she decides to lose it the method she picks just .. works? Not realistic. It's obnoxious and I would hope Ms. Fielding was better than that.


      Also the Twitter component seems a little OOH! Look at the older folks and the hip new technology! It eventually serves a purpose but I did start giggling because it seemed like the start of a bad SNL sketch more than a plot component.

      Suggestions:
      If you enjoyed the first two books (or the first move - let's all just pretend that second movie never happened, shall we?), I think you'll be able to get past the whole no more Mark component and enjoy checking in with Bridget. It's not a feminist tome, and I doubt that any women who have lost their husbands will be looking to it as a guide, but it's a fun quick read.
    • 5/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed this latest installment in Bridget's life. At first I was skeptical, after all how could it possibly be any good after killing off Mr Darcy?!?! But Bridget's unique take on life whirled me through her toy boy affair, her offbeat friendships and ultimately her (obvious to us all) new love. Loved it!
    • 4/5
      Not gonna lie - this was a really, really fun book. I went into it with some trepidation re: the Mark Darcy issue, but it's so great to see what Bridget's up to these days. Her voice is just as funny and concise as ever, which translates very well into her adventures in Twitter. Anyway, if they make a movie of this, the new dudes in her life can be played by Daniel Craig and like, Robert Pattison or something. Definitely Daniel Craig. Mmmm...
    • 3/5
      Bridget Jones is a woman in her 50s, widowed with two small children, a cougar with a young and handsome lover, and it all should be wonderful and the Bridget Jones stories brought to life again, only somehow Fielding doesn't quite manage it this time around. I don't know if it's the widowhood or the vapidity of her romance, or the fact that quirky Bridget now, quite frankly, just seems air-headed, but I couldn't quite get behind this story or its hastily put-together ending. I gave it three stars because there were some funny parts, and because it was good enough to keep me reading, but it wasn't what I was hoping for, nor as good as I would have liked.
    • 3/5
      Not as good as the previous, the loss of Mark Darcy just killed it for me and I don't know why but she just didn't feel like Bridget for me, but saying that, it was still a funny and endearing story.
    • 5/5
      sparkling,funny, romantic, marvellousn,amazing , light yet profound as alwaysdearest Bridget
    • 2/5
      It was ok. Not my usual type of book, but sometimes I look for something I think will be a quick read. This fitted the bill. I gave it a generous 2 stars as I didn't hate it, I enjoyed some parts. The texting and tweeting got on my nerves though - even during meetings! - and I didn't find it particularly funny. But the kids were cute.
    • 3/5
      A widowed much older Bridget? Of course how is an author to make money these days. Sequels usually disappoint in comparison and this third book is no exception. Though totally predictable romance wise; it was still awfully funny at times and quite sweet at others. Had fun reading about Bridget's unique childrearing and finding her middle aged sexual groove in a very different digital dating world. A thumbs up for light reading.
    • 3/5
      Now a single mom, Bridget Jones contemplates dating again, trying to fit a relationship into her busy schedule of carting two young children about, writing a screenplay, and staying in frequent contact with her friends and her mother. Bridget also dabbles in social media and new technologies while trying to lose weight and meet up to the standards of the "perfect" mothers she sees at her children's private schools.There was a nearly 15-year gap between this third novel and the second installment of the Bridget Jones's series and I don't know if during that time I changed or Fielding did, but this novel didn't just have the same je ne sais quoi that I loved about the first two books. The style premise of the book - that Bridget is furiously scribbling in her diary at key points throughout the day - is even more far-fetched now that she has two young children vying for her attention constantly. In addition, Fielding chose to begin this book at a certain point in time, then reverse backwards a year, and then work up from there back to the current moment. I'm not sure what the purpose of this timeline mangling was except maybe to make the predictable ending seem like more a surprise. If this was the case, it was unsuccessful as it was obvious from the very beginning who Bridget would end up with by the book's conclusion. Instead, this set up had me puzzling a bit in the introduction because I thought perhaps I had forgotten or missed something, as I didn't recall Bridget having children before and didn't know why she was single again. (She is single again because her husband Mark Darcy has unexpectedly and brutally died. Her father has also passed away. These two events combined allow for a lot of grief and sadness to sneak into a purportedly humorous book.)But these stylistic things were not the biggest issue I had; that fell to the character of Bridget herself. I recalled (perhaps incorrectly) Bridget as a quirky but well-meaning woman who often found herself in ridiculous situations and/or social scenes that seemed designed to make her feel uncomfortable or "less than" for not being married (an indictment on societal expectations, as I read it). The Bridget presented here sometimes still got into sticky messes (like having her child drop a box chocolates all over Bridget's dress at a fancy affair or finding herself stuck up a tree trying to help her children down said tree) but it seemed like more often or not, she was doing incredibly dumb (and frankly unsympathetic) things - like going into a drunken tailspin because a complete stranger on Twitter didn't like a joke she made, texting throughout the entirety of an important "first impressions" work meeting, lamenting about her lack of followers on Twitter when she hadn't yet posted a single tweet or followed anyone else on Twitter, and obsessively worrying about the status of her relationship if her boyfriend doesn't reply to a text within minutes, to name some of the bigger offenders. Fielding also had a field day (no pun intended) with the number of "jokes" based on vomiting, farting, and/or other bodily functions. Apparently in the post-Bridesmaids world, this is what qualifies as the humor women like. In a similar vein, Bridget spends a large portion of the novel dating a younger man whose main attractive qualities seem to be a) he is younger than she is and b) he is "gorgeous." I began to feel like I was reading a Twilight novel all over again with the number of references to how "gorgeous" he was. He has few other qualities even mentioned as part of his personality (other than a fondness for constantly eating), seeming like a stock one-dimensional character. It was disappointing to have a female protagonist who had been through so much still be so blindly superficial in her choice of dating partner. Still, these criticisms aside, there were definitely many humorous parts to the novel, and even some sections where I chuckled aloud as I listened to the audio book. (Side note, the audio reader was spectacular, using a variety of modulations and tiny shifts in accents to distinguish each character and really bring them to life.) There were some times when Fielding seemed to touch a little bit on ridiculous societal trends (like all the mothers at the posh private schools dressing like celebrities and obsessing over the class standings of their elementary school-age children), but I felt she could have gone a little deeper into exploring these issues and still have used her trademark humor to do so. In addition, there were some moments where the old Fielding seemed to be there, pointing out the ridiculousness of expectations for women and how the standard women hold for themselves and other women is unattainable and ultimately pointless. A particularly touching scene is when Bridget's children inadvertently infest her friend Tabitha with head lice and she must remove her hair extensions. She bemoans the lost of her beauty only to go home to her partner, who says she looks more beautiful with her natural hair. Everything weighed together though, I was overall disappointed in this book and had hoped for more. I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend this except to the most hard-core Bridget Jones's fans and even then, I'd have some trepidation. I also don't know if I would try again with another follow-up were one to be published.
    • 2/5
      Listening to this one on ipod. SPOLIER ALERT -- Bridget without Mark Darcy made me want to quit immediately. Dating angst at age 50 is not attractive. British p.o.v. salvages the story. It's something to do on the treadmill.
    • 3/5
      Bridget Jones finds herself involuntarily alone with two small school age children. Can she survive the primary school competitive mothering clans? Can she force her self back onto the dating scene again? Can she keep Toy Boy interested? I read earlier adventures with glee and a hint of recognition. Don't know if age has done me or Bridget in. Perhaps as friends sometimes do, we've found ourselves living completely different lives. It was fun to catch up, but the spark of the old days is gone.
    • 1/5
      Having enjoyed the previous two Bridget Jones books enormously I was really looking forward to this release, but sadly I found it to be repetitive, irritating and very disappointing. What went wrong with the author?
    • 2/5
      Fairly disappointed with this, it just didn't have the fizz of the earlier two. That could be because I really related to the first two books and, as I'm not yet a 50-something widow with two kids, I can't relate to this new Bridget. Or it could be because the voices of two of my favourite characters were missing from the story, one fairly obvious one which has been the subject of much "outrage" and the other because Fielding had sent her off across the pond with her other half.
      Either way, I read it in one afternoon and, when I finished it, although there was a sense of satisfaction, there was also a hint of meh over the fact it resulted in a "conventional" partnership.
    • 3/5
      I struggled over how many stars to give this. It's witty, familiar, touching and feels very, very Bridget. I didn't love the roles played by either Mark Darcy or Daniel Cleaver, but can understand, for at least one of those characters, why Fielding took the route she did. And while the trials of motherhood didn't speak to me personally, I can also appreciate that many of Bridget's original fans now have kids of their own. But what ultimately held me back from giving this a higher rating was: nothing much happened.

      The writing was fine (if you forgive an occasional clunky adverb, like 'confusedly') and as mentioned, some of the one-liners are laugh-out-loud funny. But it's a pretty long book and character development can only take you so far. I also felt the decision to start at one point in time (we're told in the first chapter that Bridget has a much younger boyfriend) and then backtrack to how they got together also removed too much dramatic tension.

      Reading this was like spending a rainy weekend in a cottage with a favourite yet distant relative: fun to reconnect and pleasantly cozy, but lacking in true excitement.
    • 2/5
      In some cases, third time is not a charm! Disappointed with the direction this third book went with Bridget Jones. The wit and humor in this story were a bit contrived and lacking the full effort of her previous tales. I'm not sure it's a spoiler....so I will just mention that you discover early in the book that something is off. As you continue to read that feeling that something (or someone) is missing stays with you until the end. I would have been better off had I not realized there was a third book! Some endings are perfect the first time.
    • 4/5
      Bridget is back. Much older but I'm not sure if any wiser. Her diary follows the same formula only now she's worried about how many followers she has on twitter instead of how many cigarettes she's had. I think this is actually my favorite of the three but maybe that's because I can identify more with Bridget struggling though aging and motherhood. A fun read.

      I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
    • 4/5
      Even at 50 years old-Bridget is still fun and fabulous!
      I am a huge Bridget Jones fan-she is one of my favorite fictional female characters! Mad About The Boy is wonderful! The Bridget Jones series is one EVERY woman should read!

      This novel didn't disappoint, it was everything I expected from a Bridget Jones novel-if not more. It has all the elements of excitement, trouble, mishaps, heartache, and love. I didn't want it to end!

      I truly hope this will be made into a movie-I am in desperate need of a third! I continually watch the first and second Bridget Jones movies over, and over again.
    • 4/5
      Thoroughly enjoyable update to the Bridget Jones story. A Merry Widow, Bridget tackles contemporary life, including an obsession with texting, internet dating, being a yummy mummy, getting to grips with social media, the hazards and joys of a younger boyfriend, and trying to sort out the fridge noise.For Helen Fielding, it must have been daunting to contemplate a follow-up to such a hugely successful novel, but I think she succeeded with knobs on.
    • 3/5
      Super fun! Very glad to see that Bridget is still Bridget. Not as good as the first two books, but not a disappointing addition. Excellent portrayal of modern dating (ugh, whyyyy... Texting is the worst!) - maybe I will go re-read them to get an idea of what it was like in the good old days.

      Don't understand why there were so many unnecessary references to McDonald's and Starbucks. Can't have everything.
    • 5/5
      Loooooved it! Aside from the awfulness that is Mark Darcy having been killed in such a tragic way (like many, I was horrified when I heard this was the premise, and maybe it's common knowledge but I'm making this a spoiler just in case), I enjoyed this just as much as the first two Bridget Jones novels. I literally laughed out loud, and I also literally cried. Maybe it was just the type of book that was the right read for me right now, but I really enjoyed it - so much so that I was up until 2 in the morning last night reading. Makes me want to go back and reread the first two, and also watch the movies...
    • 4/5
      Thoroughly enjoyable. Like catching up with an old neurotic friend.
    • 5/5
      Bridget Jones has been off the radar for many years now, because the last novel ended with a Happily Ever After.

      However, time has passed, life doesn't generally grant us HEA's, and Jonesy is again neck-deep in the complications of life, including dealing with two v. young children. Some fans may be ticked off that (spoiler alert) the author did not allow Bridget and Mark Darcy to live to a ripe old age as a married couple. But if she had, this book would not exist, and I ENJOYED this book tremendously, found it believable, poignant in more than a few places, and laugh-out-loud hilarious in others,

      The humor is still stellar and entirely relatable. Here's one of Bridget's (and my own) resolutions: "Deal with emails immediately and so that email becomes effective means of communication instead of terrifying Unexploded Email in-box full of guilt trips and undetonated time-vampire bombs." Yes, well, something about good intentions, hell...

      Social Media distracts her from what she SHOULD be working on: "...Is absolutely imperative not to tweet today, but finish screenplay. Have just got to do the ending. Oh, and the middle lot. And sort out the start."

      Regarding online dating, Bridget's friend Tom uses this catchy metaphor for a potential partner with whom he is flirting: "All text and no trousers." Then there was the twunken (drunken Tweeting) bird fiasco...

      Bridget's mental digressions are delicious: "he picked me up in his arms, as if I was light as a feather, which I am not, unless it was a very heavy feather, maybe from a giant prehistoric dinosaur-type bird..."

      It works as a stand-alone even if you haven't read the previous novels. If you have, it offers a peek at the glory of Mark and Bridget's past married life. It offers all the delights of mummyhood including lice infestations, vomiting, and cuddling in bed at storytime. I'm mad about this book.

    • 3/5
      Number of books about Bridget Jones read 3, rank of this one from highest to lowest 3, characters who are deeply missed 1, cringe-worthy moments in book 15, relatable moments 6, times I expect to reread this book 0.This is the third installment in Helen Fielding's series of chick-lit novels about Bridget Jones, the hapless, over-eager, but well meaning woman who is perpetually concerned with finding a good man, or at least a good shag. Back in the mid-nineties, before the entire chick-lit genre was a thing, Fielding wrote the first book about Bridget, lampooning women's magazines and loosely basing the plot on Pride and Prejudice. It's hard to see now, when we've been inundated with dozens of variations of Austen's novels and thousands and thousands of chick-lit novels, but Bridget Jones' Diary was fresh and surprising when it was first published. This third installment begins long after Bridget rode off into the sunset with her man, Mark Darcy, the sexy but repressed human rights lawyer. They were happily married and have two small children, but the book begins four years after Mark's death, an event that Bridget is still dealing with along with the challenges of raising children on her own. Fielding has kept the same format of the other books, and while Bridget is slightly more mature than she was, her friends are in exactly the same place Fielding left them over a decade ago, making the book more static and less solid than it could have been. This is a slight and inconsequential book, which was disappointing. While the first two books were fluffy, they were also doing something new, while this one is merely a retreading of old ground, and ground that thousands have now trod. A large part of Bridget Jones' appeal was that she was a new and different protagonist in a new and different genre. While I enjoyed revisiting her, I think it might have been better to have left the story at the end of the second book.
    • 3/5
      I like the Bridget Jones books not because I relate to the main character (I don't), but because I enjoy the writing and the humor. This is probably why, unlike a lot of fans, I don't have a problem with Helen Fielding killing off the Mark Darcy character. I didn't have anything invested in him or his so-called "happily ever after" with Bridget. It is a very sad event, to be sure, and it is conveyed as such in the book.

      The differences between this installment and the first two are mostly due to the fact Bridget is 15 to 20 years older, and she is a widow with two children. When I think of what I disliked about the book, it is the same types of changes that happen in real life when friends get married and pop out babies. Bridget, like anyone who steps up to the plate as a parent, is less drunk and irresponsible. In those ways, the book is less fun. But realistic for it.

      Well done, Fielding.
    • 2/5
      Wow, you would think after so many years even Bridget Jones would have grown up...a little. As a now single mother of two she is continues to be more concerned about weight, how many cigarettes she has smoked and her popularity, as determined by her followers on twitter. She leaves her children primarily in the care of the nanny or in a pinch with her former lover, the irresponsible Daniel. While she is in pursuit of of younger men. Time to grow up Bridget.
    • 3/5
      Oh, Bridget. I wanted a happily ever after for you. This is not that book. Presumably it is more 'interesting' to have Bridget back on the dating market than being a smug married, and a book about grief is more textured than a book about happiness. But if you are looking for a page turning silly 'what happens next?' mummy flick about dealing with headlice, be warned that Mark Darcy is dead. I was not warned.That aside, I don't want to be judgy, but Bridget is very annoying and self sabotaging in this book. I mean, I know that's the point, she's every-woman, and we laugh at her mess-ups and feel better about our own. But her swanning through privilege (she has no need to work, she messes up every meeting about her film script), obsessing about weight and clothes and boys, and not really spending that much time with the children she loves is just a bit tedious.
    • 2/5
      Meh. Not content with the happy ending from the last book, here we have Bridget dealing with monumental grief will still having wacky adventures on the dating front. Added bonus: wacky adventures in parenthood! I caught the love interest the first sentence that mentioned him, which was annoying because he and Bridget had exactly zero chemistry. If you're a fan of the first two Bridget Jones books, feel free to skip this one.
    • 5/5
      I loves this book. Bridget is back and she is amazing as always. such a great read.
    • 3/5
      Fun, quick read - and in the end, quite poignant.