Poor Adrian Is As Thwarted, and Funny, As Ever

I followed Adrian Mole's teenage years in the first two books in the Adrian Mole series, but then sort of drifted away. I thought this book, the fifth in the eight book series, would offer an excellent opportunity to catch up with Adrian, and that was a good choice.

By this time Adrian has a few marriages behind him and a few children as well. He still is hopelessly in love with Pandora, which is complicated by the fact that his parents and her parents have engaged in a bit of spouse swapping. All of the old characters make appearances, but of course there are many new characters and all sorts of new travails in this volume. (If you need a refresher, there is a very nice summary of this book on Wikipedia that will bring you up to speed on the story-to-date and will remind you who all the players are).

As before, Adrian's life is "just one damn thing after another", and he takes great care in his diary to lay it out for us in all its stupendous and frustrating complexity. There is the trademark Mole humor, again equally balanced between lines he intends as humor and observations that are, to him, unintentionally funny. We address family life, parenthood, growing pains, parents, the politics and culture of the day, marriage, sex, work, and existential angst with Adrian's usual combination of hope, self-delusion, optimism, and sardonic wit. On the plus side, while the author apparently delights in tormenting Mole, there are many bits of brightness and goodwill in Adrian's life, such that one never gives up hope for him and he never totally gives in to despair.

And so it goes, as Adrian Mole drives on along the path we all must follow. It was good to visit with him again, and I finished this book wishing him well.

(Please note that I secured a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)