The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4
by Sue Townsend: Adrian has declared himself to be a misunderstood intellectual who has fallen in love with his classmate, Pandora. He is pretentious and irritable and a bit slow on the uptake – in other words, a pretty typical teenager. I found much of this book quite funny, but mostly because I was reading from an adult’s point of view. I have no idea how many of the jokes I would have understood had I been reading this at Adrian’s age (which is generally the audience to which the book is marketed). I also don’t see many adolescents reading this because it’s so very dated: for example, there are several references to Margaret Thatcher and a big party to celebrate the marriage of Charles and Diana. That said, I could see it appealing to us adults familiar with British culture from that time period. I don’t know that I’ll seek out any other Adrian Mole books in the future, but this was a quick and amusing read.
Also posted on BookCrossing.
Yeah, I read this when I was about that age so the references were close enough in time for me to get though now I’m wondering if I missed any more adult-targeted jokes.
Wow, I didn’t realise there were so many sequels, I didn’t notice more than the first couple.
Whoa. Hi, Polsy. It’s been what, like six years since we last talked?