web1_Key1.jpg

Harveys Creek to receive more trophy trout under the PFBC’s Keystone Select program

web1_CMYKthumbnail_wyoming.jpg

Local Author Spotlight: Tales of area mining history, a book of poems and a fictional story of love, loss and family

<p>I spent six months living in Australia during college. This was before e-books so I remember being upset that I couldn&#8217;t bring my beloved books with me. I didn&#8217;t have a lot of money to buy more. I wandered through a bookstore where I stumbled upon Helen Fielding&#8217;s &#8220;Bridget Jones&#8217; Diary&#8221; and &#8220;Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.&#8221;</p><p>Like most of the world, I fell in love with the flighty, perpetually single, nutty Bridget. I read those two books over and over during my study abroad and many times later over the years. I eventually saw the first movie, but wasn&#8217;t crazy about it so skipped the second. I knew that Fielding wrote some newspaper articles that followed Bridget as she got pregnant with a child who could belong to either of her lovers: Daniel Cleaver or Mark Darcy.</p><p>I never actually read those articles, but (spoiler alert) I knew the little boy turned out to be Daniel&#8217;s, who Bridget ended up living with, although Mark was still in the picture. While this story was the inspiration for the third film, which came out in 2014, Fielding wrote a third Bridget book entitled &#8220;Mad About the Boy.&#8221; Bridget seemed like a fun character to revisit.</p><p>Bridget is the same lovable ditz who I adored all those years ago. She still drinks and eats too much. Her life is disorganized and messy, but mostly happy. At the start of the book, it&#8217;s revealed that Bridget is a widow at 51. Mark Darcy died five years before the story begins, leaving her with two children to raise: Billy and Mabel. She doesn&#8217;t need to work as Mark left her enough money to get by. They live in a small, comfortable house and she has a nanny to help with the children while she writes.</p><p>Bridget is working on a screenplay for Hedda Gabler, although in typical Bridget fashion, she believes Chekov wrote the play, rather than Ibsen. She continues to receive ridiculously terrible advice from her various friends. She hasn&#8217;t had sex since Mark&#8217;s death and struggles with school drop-off and pick-up, social media and passwords for technology.</p><p>I always found Bridget Jones to be endearing and adorable despite her being a hot mess. However, reading about her from a more adult perspective, I was a bit perplexed that she hadn&#8217;t matured from where she was as a 30-something. Now I&#8217;m a 30-something and I wished Bridget would pull herself together.</p><p>When the book opens, Bridget is a sad and overweight widow. A year later, she has lost 40 pounds and is starting to venture into social media. She becomes obsessed with Twitter, a platform I can&#8217;t stand in real life, so it was a bit annoying that she was so fascinated by it. She spends a little too much time playing around online and neglecting her kids, who she had at age 43 and 45. Her lack of maturity - constantly talking about vomit and farting - gets old fast.</p><p>None of this is new.</p><p>She was always over-the-top and annoying, but also extremely relatable. As nonfeminist as it is to say, she&#8217;s an absolute mess who needed Mark Darcy to manage her life and keep her in line. In return, she helped keep his life fun and loose, which is why it&#8217;s so sad to find her without him.</p><p>The book essentially sets up a new Mark/Bridget/Daniel love triangle. Through Twitter, Bridget meets Roxster, a 29-year-old &#8220;boy toy&#8221; who helps reawaken her sexually, but of course would never last long term. At the same time, she meets Mr. Wallaker, a strict, disciplined teacher at her son&#8217;s school. Their meeting does not start off well, but it&#8217;s clear that something will happen between them. She needs someone to help her pull her life together and he needs someone to make his life more fun. Like Mark Darcy, he is perfect for her.</p><p>Despite my annoyances at Bridget, &#8220;Mad About the Boy&#8221; was fun and entertaining: total comfort food. One can&#8217;t help but feel that Bridget Jones truly deserves her happy ending after everything she&#8217;s been through.</p><style>
.neFileBlock {
	margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.neFileBlock p {
	margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
.neFileBlock .neFile {
	border-bottom: 1px dotted #aaa;
	padding-bottom: 5px;
	padding-top: 10px;
}
.neFileBlock .neCaption {
	font-size: 85%;
}
</style>
<div class='neFileBlock'>
<div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/web1_thumbnail_Mad-About-the-Boy.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">This Bridget Jones novel has yet to hit the big screen. It follows Bridget&#8217;s life after Mark Darcy. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/web1_thumbnail_Mad-About-the-Boy.jpg</photo0><caption0>This Bridget Jones novel has yet to hit the big screen. It follows Bridget&#8217;s life after Mark Darcy. </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Dorothy Sasso</p><p>On the Books</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p>&#8216;Mad About the Boy&#8217;</p><p>Author: Helen Fielding</p><p>Pages: 478</p><p>Publisher: Vintage</p><p>Rating:</p><p>Rating: &#9830;&#9830;&#9830;1/2</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Dorothy Sasso is a former Soap Opera Digest writer and a private school teacher. She is busy reading books and raising her two daughters.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

On the Books: Bridget Jones is still as crazy as ever in ‘Mad About the Boy’