My Hopes and Fears for the Third Bridget Jones Book

It was announced this week that Helen Fielding is writing a third Bridget Jones book. As a fan of Bridget, this makes me both excited and nervous. My bookshelf contains a very dog eared copy of Bridge Jones’ Diary, because it is hilarious. It was relatable when I first read it in high school; it’s even more relatable now. (Singletons! Smug Marrieds! Boys named Darcy! What’s not to love?) There is not a copy of the second Bridget Jones book, because I didn’t like it very much.

I don’t know what to expect from a third book. I’m hopeful that we’ll return to everything that made the first book so fun, but it’s been over a decade since it was published. Helen Fielding has said that she’s in a different place in her life, and that Bridget will be, too. I think this could very much go either way, but I’m hoping it will be a good thing. Below, some other things I hope the book will have. (And beware if you haven’t read the books yet; there will be spoilers!)

Bridget has to be married to Mark Darcy. If she isn’t, I’m not bothering to read the book. One of my biggest issues with the second book, and with any book that does this, is when a couple that’s clearly meant to be together is broken up for the sake of creating conflict in the book. There has to be a way to make the story interesting without stressing me out by splitting these two up.

Bridget should be a mom. I love Bridget’s mom as a character (so zany!) and I love reading about how Bridget relates to her. I can’t wait to see how this relationship translates to Bridget’s relationship with her own children. Plus, half the fun of the first book was watching how bad Bridget was at taking care of herself, so it’ll be interesting to watch her try and take care of someone else.

Bridget should be funny. Even upon my hundredth rereading, the first Bridget Jones book is still filled with actual laugh out loud moments for me. The second book, not so much. Aside from the above two plot points, I don’t care what Bridget’s gotten up to since we saw her last, as long as she’s recounting it with her original sense of humor.

And a few things I hope the book doesn’t include:

Too much family stuff. One of the big things about Bridget as a character was that she was an independent woman; she didn’t buy into the ‘Smug Married with a baby’ as the route to happiness schtick that so many of her friends were doing. It would be an utter tragedy if Bridget transformed into some sort of Stepford Mommy; I want her to remain the slightly disheveled mess she we all love.

Social media overload. Helen Fielding has mentioned that Bridget is going to be updated with the times, and will be worried about things like how many people are following her on Twitter. This strikes me as totally out of character and more like something Bridget’s mom would do; Bridget would be too busy laughing with her friends over a glass of wine (or five) about “young people” and their “Facebookings.”

All my reservations aside, I know I’ll end up reading the book because I’m curious to see what Bridget’s been up to all these years. Anything you would or wouldn’t like to see in the new book, or have you totally lost interest?

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