A more contemplative Bridget Jones? v.v.good

I had forgotten how many ties Edge of Reason shares with another Austen novel, Persuasion. In fact, some of the sly references made the reading that much more enjoyable. As a sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason is v.good, but as a Persuasion contemporary adaptation, it does quite nicely. Not like the movie. In fact, let’s never mention the second movie, shall we?

This novel finds Bridget Jones knee-deep in a new relationship with Mark Darcy, enjoying the highs and lows of new relationship, new relationship sex, and new relationship companionship. Threatening to mar all that is Rebecca, a woman great physique and social cache with the verbal sparring abilities of a jellyfish–that is, she wraps around you and you don’t know you’ve been stung until you’re stinging already. Anyway, Bridget suspects her of trying to steal Mark away, hijinks ensue, and there’s a showdown in Thailand.

Fielding does an excellent job of building on the first novel and bringing something new and enjoyable for faithful readers. There’s an interview with Colin Firth that is quite hilarious (and when you consider that Colin Firth plays Mark Darcy in the films, well…the meta becomes labyrinthine). There are also some great moments of self-reflection that elevate the novel from single-girl-chick-lit to genuinely readable adult fiction (not that there’s anything wrong with chick-lit–I just find most of it to be more poorly written or plotted than the potential, but that’s another blog for another time). I’m really wondering what induced Ms. Fielding to take the series in such a vastly different direction that she would willingly kill off one of her best characters as the premise of the story. I’ll find out when I read Mad about the Boy…