"Over the course of the year, Bridget loses a total of 72 pounds but gains a total of 74. She remains, however, optimistic. Through it all, Bridget will have you helpless with laughter, and - like millions of readers the world round - you'll find yourself shouting, 'Bridget Jones IS me!'" (Back cover excerpt, Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding, 1996 UK Macmillan, 1998 US Viking Penguin)

August 22, 1999

Weight unknown, alcohol units 16 (good for a writer before noon), cigarettes N/A, calories unknown, books read one.

Ugh. The last thing on earth I feel physically, emotionally or mentally equipped to do is re-read this book...

If this reviewer related a story about a friend who had no self-esteem; kept falling in and out of bad relationships, because her sole goal was to get married; fell under the spell of her insulting and meddling mother; and spent all of her time obsessing over her weight - would she be considered the heroine of anything? Much less a comedy? Meet Bridget Jones, a successful, single woman in her 30's who is exactly all of the above.

Helen Fielding sugars this tale up by presenting it in a gimmicky fashion: readers are privy to Bridget's diary for an entire year and thus follow her firsthand through mishaps, life changes, and countless dieting schemes. An interesting way to approach the problems of writing in first person, but not enough to detract from the utter dislikability (if Bridget can make up words, so can I!) of the characters.

Bridget is weak, at best, but - like so many women - has no reason to be; readers find her in January, working as a book editor and infatuated with her boss and follow her throughout the next twelve months. Her mother, who stereotypically berates Bridget about singledom and her choice of clothing, leaves her bewildered father to pursue life with hot Latin men and working on television. So, as Bridget obsesses over not having her mother's former life, her mother is leading the life Bridget should be having.

In her self-pity, Bridget eats, drinks, and takes comfort in her friends: Sharon - a man-hating two-dimensional pseudo-feminist, Jude - an even weaker woman than Bridget who is living the life of whatever self-help book is in her bag, and Tom - a gay man with his own relationship problems. Together, they eat, drink, eat some more, and get really drunk. Bridget beats herself up, and eats some more. Sound familiar?

Let me step outside for a moment and admit that this reviewer has done all of these things, too - as surely have most women to some degree. We all lead our Waiting to Exhale existences, and certainly there isn't a woman in the Western World who has never stepped on a scale. But in taking on these types of women as our heroines and holding our Cosmopolitans in our hands as the be-all-end-all bibles of femininity - how do we ever move forward?

It was in this sadness that Bridget is nothing more than pathetic, coming off more like a sitcom character than a woman to whom one could relate. To be a woman, working or otherwise, means to define one's self in terms relating to self, not to others. These are not revolutionary ideas; in fact, they are the models of truths voiced by countless women throughout history.

Which brings one to question: why does a book like this become a bestseller in several countries at the end of the 20th century? When did we become a culture haunted with "the rules" and ultra-thin supermodels? This humble reviewer can not even begin to touch that dissertation topic here, but it does present a troubling scenario.

As for Diary, the reader will find the characterizations familiar and will relate to some of Bridget's wacky adventures (yes, this is a book where wackiness ensues). As in all sitcoms, this one has a happy ending, where Bridget gets the man that you know she'll get from page 8, and her independent mother is lured back into the trappings of domesticity in a strange set-up involving the love interest as Prince Charming, Her Savior. But, there is nothing to be learned or gained from relating to this sort of airplane fare.

That's not true; this reviewer learned an important lesson: if the review snippets on the back cover include quotes from Elle and Glamour, the book is best left on the sale table of Border's, and better reading will be found in the back corner of the literature section.