Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

CONTENTS

Cover

About the Book

About the Author

Also by Helen Fielding

Dedication

Title Page

Prologue

Plenty of Fuckwits

The Art of Concentration

Dark Night of the Soul

Part One: Born-Again Virgin

2012 Diary

A New Start – A New Me

Social Media Virgin

The Flabby Diaphragm

Makeover!

Smug Married Hell

A Plan

A Daniel in Shining Armour

The Perfect Babysitter

The Stronghold

Aftermath

Women Change Their Minds

Crashing Wave

How Not to Do Dating

The Number One Key Dating Rule

Continuing Dating Incompetence

Escalating Dating Incompetence

Intensive Dating Study

Wallowing in It

Christmas

Part Two: Mad About the Boy

2013 Diary

Perfect Mother

A Needle in a Twitterstack

Do Not Tweet When Drunk

Twunken Aftermath

Screenwriter

Let it Snow!

Do Not Tweet About Date During Date

Date With Toy Boy

Joy Mixed With Sick

Getting to Second Date

Hard-Hats-Offing!

The Barnacle’s Penis

To Sleep With or Not to Sleep With?

Second Date With Toy Boy

Deflowered

Back in the Present Moment

Dark Night of the Soul

Power Mother

Nits in the Works

Nit-Infestered Power Meeting

Fire! Fire!

The Trouble With Summer

Direction!

The Trouble With Outfits

Heady Glamorous Times

Talitha’s Party

Part Three: Descent Into Chaos

Horrible No-Good Very Bad Day

Overstuffed Lives

Mini-Break or Break-Up?

Is it Snow or is it Blossom?

Frantic

Farting Sports Day

The Deep Freeze

That’s What Friends Are For

The Yawning Void

Just the Way They Are

Let’s Face the Music and Tea-Dance

Getting Online

KBO

The Summer Concert

The Horror, The Horror

Mid-Match Collision

Rekindling

Blimey

Giving In

Part Four: The Great Tree

Summer of Fun

Back to School

The Mighty Jungle

Parents’ Evening

Fifty Shades of Old

The Sound of Shells Cracking

A Hero Will Rise

’Tis the Season

The Carol Concert

The Owl

The Year’s Progress

Outcome

Acknowledgements

Copyright

ABOUT THE BOOK

WHAT DO YOU DO when a girlfriend’s 60th birthday party is the same day as your boyfriend’s 30th?

IS IT WRONG to lie about your age when online dating?

IS IT MORALLY WRONG to have a blow-dry when one of your children has head lice?

DOES THE DALAI LAMA actually tweet or is it his assistant?

IS TECHNOLOGY now the fifth element? Or is that wood?

IS SLEEPING WITH SOMEONE after 2 dates and 6 weeks of texting the same as getting married after 2 meetings and 6 months of letter writing in Jane Austen’s day?

Pondering these, and other modern dilemmas, Bridget Jones stumbles through the challenges of single-motherhood, tweeting, texting and rediscovering her sexuality in what SOME people rudely and outdatedly call ‘middle age’.

The long-awaited return of a much-loved character, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is timely, tender, touching, witty, wise and bloody hilarious.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

HELEN FIELDING is the author of Bridget Jones’s Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, and was part of the screenwriting team on the films of the same name. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is her fifth novel. She has two children and lives in London and sometimes Los Angeles.

Also by Helen Fielding

Cause Celeb

Bridget Jones’s Diary

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination

To Dash and Romy

PROLOGUE

Thursday 18 April 2013

2.30 p.m. Talitha just called, talking in that urgent, ‘let’s-be-discreet-but-wildly-overdramatic’ voice she always has. ‘Darling, I just want to let you know that it’s my sixtieth on the 24th of May. I’m not SAYING it’s my sixtieth, obviously. And keep it quiet because I’m not asking everyone. I just wanted you to keep the date free.’

I panicked. ‘That would be great!’ I gushed unconvincingly.

‘Bridget. You absolutely can’t not come.’

‘Well, the thing is . . .’

‘What?’

‘It’s Roxster’s thirtieth birthday that night.’

Silence at the end of the phone.

‘I mean, we probably won’t still be together by then, but, if we are, it would be . . .’ I tailed off.

‘I’ve just put “no children” on the invites.’

‘He’ll be thirty by then!’ I said indignantly.

‘I’m just teasing, darling. Of course you must bring your toy boy. I’ll get a bouncy castle! Back on air. Mustrunloveyoubye!’