Horror for Newbies
Carolyn asked this question about Bridget Jones’s Diary (Bridget Jones, #1):
Would you recommend this book for a 16 year old (girl)?
SusyHD I read and re-read this over and over at that age, I thought it was very funny and one of my favourites.

It's not actively damaging: like any book, it…moreI read and re-read this over and over at that age, I thought it was very funny and one of my favourites.

It's not actively damaging: like any book, it really depends on the person who's reading it - in my case, I was quite insecure and I read this, 'Sex and the City' and 'Secret Diary of a Call Girl' and gleaned from these that sophisticated adult women were obsessed with their weight and status and material things. I became desperate to emulate the characters I read about in order to be cool. But that's who I was - my sister, on the other hand, read it at fourteen and loved the Jane Austen connection, finding Bridget's shallow features hilarious. The worst things about BJD, offensiveness-wise, are: the implication that all women can orgasm from vaginal sex, the implication that it's normal to get very drunk on an average night out and the fact that Bridget is so obsessed with her body and dieting while being a slim and healthy 9 stone (average). The author may or may not be lampooning this way of thinking, but it's become quite 'of its time' now. As long as you talk to your sixteen-year-old about the subjects she's discovering and how they relate to facts and real-life experience, there's no reason to ban something like this from your bookshelf.(less)
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Bridget Jones’s Diary
by Helen Fielding (Goodreads Author)
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