After Reading: THE ADRIAN MOLE DIARIES by Sue Townsend

Adrian Mole faces the same agonies which life sets before most adolescents: troubles with girls, school, parents, and an uncaring world. The difference, though, between young Master Mole and his peers is that this British lad keeps a diary--an earnest chronicle of longing and disaster that has convulsed more than five million readers since its two-volume initial publication. From teenaged Adrian's obsession with intellectuality after understanding "nearly every word" of a Malcolm Muggeridge broadcast to his anguished adoration of a lovely, mercurial schoolmate, from his view of his parents' constantly creaking relationship to his heartfelt but hilarious attempts at cathartic verse, here is an outrageous triumph of deadpan, and deadly accurate, satire. ABBA, Princess Di's wedding, street punks, Monty Python, the Falklands campaign--all the cultural pageantry of a keenly observed era marches past the unique perspective of Sue Townsend's brilliant comic creation: A. Mole, the unforgettable lad whose self-absorption only gets funnier as his life becomes more desperate. (Goodreads)
Somehow I hadn't heard of this series, but a good friend told me about loving them as a kid and I had to pick up a copy. It is hilarious! Adrian is goofy and incredibly self absorbed--but in a way that comes across as amusing rather than completely annoying. He is dealing with some difficult issues: his parents are in limbo, he finds himself with younger siblings in a rather unexpected way, and he's definitely teased. However, he carries on, in true British fashion, and somehow never loses sight of who he is. The diary format was a great one of this--I don't see how it could have worked really any other way--although it did mean that I often ended up reading well into the night because finding a good breaking point was impossible :) Overall, even though Adrian is a definitely flawed character, he's also a very human one, and one who represents the early 80's well. There are apparently a bunch more novels in the series as Adrian grows up and I hope to check them out!
Have you ever read any of these novels? How about diary format--is it one you enjoy?