Mad at Helen Fielding

So. I finally read Mad about the Boy. I don’t know what to do with it. But I know that I didn’t love it.

After two books, in which Bridget was navigating life as a 30-something Singleton, we skip right over her married years to Mark Darcy and skip ahead to 2013, where he’s been dead for five years, and she’s left to think about dating again with two young children. There are numerous dating hijinks and misunderstandings and a refried Elizabeth-and-Darcy relationship, to boot. Thankfully, there is a delicious Daniel Cleaver cameo, and [SPOILER] he’s as skeezy as ever.

As far as a reading experience, I felt like I’d been reading something I’d already read before. I guess what I didn’t need was more of Bridget Jones dating and getting herself into wacky physical comedy. I felt sort of cheated that I missed out on the Bridget-Mark marriage and the good years. It sort felt like the ending of How I Met Your Mother (not that I watched it, but I heard *plenty* from the internet)–what’s the point of getting Bridget and Mark together if we don’t actually see them together?

I don’t have much more to say besides that. The love stories felt kind of forced, and I missed Mark Darcy. The best part about this novel was the indignant comment thread on Pajiba when the news broke about Fielding’s offing of Mark. Otherwise, I felt lots of “Meh” while reading this, and that’s not how I want to feel when reading Bridget Jones, ya know?

There’s an argument to be had about the compelling story of widowhood, of learning to fall in love when you’ve already fallen in love with your soulmate, had his kids, and then lost him. But I don’t know that Bridget Jones is that venue–I think that Fielding could have done better with the story, had she written an original novel instead of ending the series this way.

So. Long story short: I will not be watching the inevitable adaptation.