Customer Reviews

The Adrian Mole Diaries: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4: The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

People who find out I read a lot sometimes ask, "What's the best book you ever read?" That is a question that's impossible to answer. I might be able to name the best baseball book I ever read or the best Jane Austen novel or the best biography of a political figure or the best historical fiction set in the middle ages or the best teen-age romance. But if anyone ever asks me, "What's the funniest book you ever read?" this one will be my answer.

This is the only book I've ever read that made me laugh out loud so hard I cried at the same time. This happened during the scene in which Adrian is contemplating running away and/or committing suicide and feeling exceedingly sorry for himself. I felt at the time it was cruel of me to be laughing over this poor adolescent's pain, but that just made it funnier. I was sitting at the kitchen table at the time, and the other members of the family who passed by thought I was nuts and said so.

Everyone's sense of humor is different. I like my humor dry and understated. I can't stand slapstick. I was about forty when I read this. Maybe you have to be old enough to look back on the agonies of adolescence and not give a rat's tail to enjoy this book.

If Charles Shultz's saying "Happiness isn't funny" is true, then this book by definition qualifies as hilarious. Adrian Mole isn't just a teenager with typical adolescent angst; he's smack dab in the middle of Thatcher's Britain, on the wrong side of the tracks.

His parents are on the skids, he has neither dress sense, social grace, looks, intelligence, nor wit, but believes himself to be intellectual and artistically gifted.

Menaced and robbed by skinheads at school on a daily basis, pining for a middle-class girl on the fast-track to the upper class he'd so desperately want to join... he is the absolute metaphor for a latter 20th century England that is no longer on the cutting edge of anything, and, like a teenager realising subconsciously he has no future, dealing with the reality that it will never live up to its past glory or future expectations.

Savagely skewering the class system, granola-crunching intellectuals, adolescence, Thatcherism, and life in the Midlands, Sue Townsend has executed a real stroke of brilliance in making Mole so clueless. As the moron he is, he cannot filter nor embellish the truth that goes on around him, but reports it through his own naive eyes. This lets us see, for example, that his best friend is less than sane with a serious identity crisis, without the psychobabble.

These are dark, brutal books and could easily be rewritten as black tragedies... much of the humor comes from a sense of "Dei gratia sum quod sum." Yet they are funnier still for being so. If you are British or British-ex-pat or in a British-inspired country like Canada or Australia, you WILL see people you know in these characters.

This really is essential reading.

[....] Adrian Mole IS no normal 14 year old. Adrian fancies himself to be an "intellectual", something he repeatedly belies in his fanciful, yet absolutely dumb, comments (such as "When Rembrandt painted the Sistine Chapel", etc.) His language is purposely exaggerated to demonstrate his self-image.

That being said, I vaguely remember having read this in grade school; it wasn't until a leisurely browse through a discount book store that I chanced upon it again. It seemed warmly familiar, so I bought it. Since then, I read it whenever I feel like a humorous pick-me-up. Adrian's language envelopes the reader and is, oddly, touching. You can't say that you particularly LIKE Adrian all the time; yet somehow you find yourself cheering him on. Adrian continually shows himself to be ignorant yet still manages to feel that he is intellectually superior to others. Additionally, Adrian's self-absorption is juxtaposed perfectly with his "good samaritanship" (Bert Baxter, anyone?). His parents are immoral, lazy, self-centered and just plain impossible, yet Adrian somehow soldiers on, alternately considering himself an object of pity and a shining example of excellence. I'm looking forward to finding out how Adrian grew up (just found out that there's more books on him!). In the meantime, I would recommend this book to anyone with a sense of humor.

I must first congratulate Sue Townsend on her remarkable acheivements with young Adrian Albert Mole. I have read The Secret Diary and The Growing Pains about 4 times each, but I never get tired or bored of it.

Adrian is starts off as a 13 year old Intellectual, living in a house with his pathetic parents and his companion(the dog!) He has much to say about World Politics and Communism, and has a bitter-sweet imagination. As an Intellectual, he finds it difficult to live in a home where he is not noticed, and in a world where people kill themselves, and corruption ruled the world!

He also has a thirst for Great English Literature, and he never turns away from it. After reading many Classic books: "Animal Farm, Wuthering Heights, etc" he decides that Poetry and novels is what he wants! He wants to become a poet, and submits numerous poems to the BBC, but they fail to get published, but young Mole is a fighter, and he never gives up!

He lives life quite the same, until the treacle-haired love of his life turns up( Pandora Braithwaite). She is smart, gorgeous, and hilariously funny, as stated by A.Mole. But, as he grows older into maturity, he discovers that things will change, and turn very bitter and sweet. But, Mole will always turn out triumphant in the end!

A must read!

I have decided to write a review as I am a young girl who has just finished reading both the secret diary and the grwoing pains and I think it would be useful to other children to see a review from their generations point of view...

This book is hillarious, I could not put it down and I am actually currently reading the next one in line. I am 11 but I am quite an advanced reader and this could suit both advanced readers and more intermediate readers. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it is a moving diary of Adrian's that I am personally putting on my reading list for the next year who come into grade 6 as I was chosen to update it. In my library, although we have all the adrian mole diaries, they are never there. It was only out of pure luck i finally (after 2 weeks of hunting) managed to get "The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole" out. When look at the number of stamps that have been manically pressed on the inside to prove that you got the book out I stare in wonder. This copy had only been in the library for 2 months! To sum the whole thingup, it's a great laugh and great fun.

This is a VERY funny book, written with a great deal of poignancy and insight into the mind of a 13 year old boy. This in itself is surprising, seeing as how the author is NOT a 13 year old boy!

We follow Adrian through the trials and tribulations of his parents' marital conflicts, the angst of unrequited love and the heady pleasures of then attaining that love, and all the usual issues with being a boy in school with teenage acne. A particularly funny scene is where the doctor assures Adrian that he is only suffering from acne, and that Lassa Fever is unlikely as he has not been to Africa recently. Adrian decides to get a paper round so that he can consult a private doctor in the future.

I cannot receommend it highly enough - it is a wonderful pick me up book for a dull day!

Adrian Mole is the most funniest, most naive and most nerdish teenager ever. Read this book if you want to laugh until you cry.

Ah, yes. Now in my thirties I remember when I was a spotty, sex-craved teenager who listened to The Smiths all day and complained about my parents. Then my high school English teacher made us read this book and my life looked absolutley fantastic!! At least I was not a part of the Mole family and at least I was not Adrian. But the way Adrian deals with his 'lusts' is absolutley spot-on. Big n' Bouncy indeed! Having said that, he is a wonderful character who is at the same time as funny as he is sad. His mum and dad are wonderfully written and it is easy to understand everyone's prediciment (except for the gran). Of course, the dog deserves the St. George's Cross for all the pain it is put through. Also, read The Queen and I. Wonderful.

This book is one of the most accurate portrayals of the teenage experience I have ever read. It wasn't too long ago that I was feeling the same anxieties as Adrian. Sue Townsend inject humor into teen angst without trivializing the experience. I found myself laughing constantly because he was doing stuff that I remember myself doing. A definite must-read.

I picked up the first of these diaries some twelve years ago, probably because it was an easy way to read someone else's diary. I have never been the same since. I have had a long relationship it seems today, with a collection of characters so insane, bizarre and unique that they seem real to me. The other characters that Sue Townsend has created have also hooked me. Whether she is writing as herself, the oh-so-intellectual Mr. Mole, a young Margaret Thatcher, or a fly on the wall at Bukingham Palace, she manages and wonderfully.

I often hear it whispered that the author is tiring of these characters and intends to retire. I hope that she never will...

I also hope that a hundred years from now, Sue Townsend will be remembered for what she is; one of the most outspoken, daring, hilarious writers ever to come out of Britain, if not one of the most gifted the whole world.