One Day by David Nicholls

It is very rare that I put a book down.  But it's been over 2 months, and I still haven't had the desire to finish reading One Day.  I picked it up because the book was made into a movie this summer, and I always like to read the book before seeing the movie.  Maybe I got it backwards this time.

I wasn't expecting the British dialect which although isn't something I dislike, it turned me off in this case. I felt like the same situations just kept repeating themselves.  After 9 chapters, and more than a third of the way through, I just lost interest.  I guess it's the movie for me.  

The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory

This book was not as good as The Other Boleyn Girl.   It seemed to drag at the end, going back and forth between the three women: Anne of Cleves, Jane Boleyn and Katherine Howard.  Although I loved finding out what happened to King Henry’s next wives, the novel itself fell short for me. 

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

This novel was my first introduction to The Tudors, and it had me hooked from the start.  I thought it was brilliant to tell the story of Anne Boleyn through her sister.  I remembered that feeling of sisterly competition, and appreciated the honesty from the main character, Mary.  I read most of the book on a 36 hour flight itinerary, and couldn’t have chosen a better time because I had the luxury of reading for hours on end.  I now realize that this book is actually #2 out of 6, and I intend to start reading the others. 

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

I had really high hopes for this novel, considering how much I loved reading The Time Traveler’s Wife.  It turns out that this was just a different kind of book.  More ghost story than love story, the twin main characters in this book have a flatness to them that made it hard to connect.  The story goes back and forth between several characters without really developing any one.  I think I had my hopes set too high to really enjoy what this book was; good for a rainy day with a hot cup of tea and nothing better to do.    

Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding

My massage therapist, who told me about the dollar bookstore, also told me that she liked reading Bridget Jones’s Diary. So I found it at the aforementioned dollar bookstore and read it over the last two or three weeks. I think I’ll save the sequel for later. I’ve been itching to read The Book Thief. Lately, my nightly reading time has been curtailed by marathons of Weeds. We have watched the first 5 seasons during the last month. But this review isn’t about Weeds its about Bridget.

Review:
Bridget Jones’s Diary turned out to be a clever book. I really liked the unique diary-esque entries. I particularly enjoyed the daily weight, calorie, alcohol, cigarette, lotto ticket totals, because it is something neurotically real. Especially because I had seen both movies before reading the book, I couldn’t help but use Renee’s voice as the narrator in my head. Written with British humor, with a very British style, I really enjoyed the language of the story as something different than my usual.