Bestsellers that
Deserve the Attention

You see it all the time, splashed across shiny dustjackets: "#1 Bestseller!" "365 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list!" "By the bestselling author of Run, Lawyer, Run!" Obviously, with so many people buying these books, some of them have to be good…right?

Right. And some of them aren't. As its title suggests, the goal of this page will be to highlight the bestsellers that truly warrant a second look, and steer you clear of the ones that don't. I can't promise to review all or even most of the bestsellers on the list (due to time restrictions and a deep-seated need to avoid ever reading any book by Jackie Collins or Danielle Steele), but I will do all I can to promote the cream of the crop.

Bridget Jones' Diary

By Helen Fielding

Meet Bridget Jones: thirtysomething, single, and hysterically neurotic. This is a woman who, on a daily basis, not only records her weight and caloric intake, but also the number of cigarettes smoked, alcoholic drinks consumed, and lottery tickets purchased. She praises herself for worthy efforts (such as surviving a day without a single cigarette), and puts an amazingly positive spin on her many instances of less-than-ideal behavior (such as having a Toblerone, some tiramisu, and four glasses of red wine and calling it dinner).

These self-imposed cheers and jeers-as well as the rest of the novel-unfold within Bridget's diary, her closest confidante. Through these pages we see her hopes, her dreams, and most of all her hilarious fears. For Bridget-as everyone has been at one point or another-is terrified that she will remain forever a "Singleton" amongst the ever-growing ranks of "Smug Marrieds" around her. While she abhors their efforts to fix her up with their defective friends and relatives, and resents the way they seem to view single folk as rare and pitiful freaks of nature, Bridget still wants desperately to join their cult of couplehood.

Her ill-fated attempts to do this make for much of the book's humor. She engages in an ill-advised flirtation with her boss, an arrogant yet charming fellow who cheekily inquires whether Bridget's (admittedly miniscule) skirt has been sent home sick for the day. She agrees to date an attractive, muscular man ten years her junior, only to be told, "Ugh, you're all squishy…" when things start to turn romantic. She listens with little patience to her mother's rapturous descriptions of Mark Darcy, a newly-divorced lawyer and friend of the family, wondering why her mother "didn't just come out with it and say, 'Darling, do shag Mark Darcy over the turkey curry, would you? He's very rich.'"

Throughout her tribulations with the opposite sex, Bridget relies upon a close network of friends-none of whom is in an ideal relationship, but all of whom have opinions about Bridget's situation-to share her highs and lows. There's Tom, the currently-in-vogue gay best friend character, who would of course be perfect for Bridget if he could just get past that sexual orientation hurdle; Jude, the dysfunctional co-dependent trapped in a dead-end relationship with a man referred to only as Vile Richard; and Sharon, the strident heterosexual feminist, who, it just so happens, can't seem to find a man either.

These friends, like the book's readers, think they know what's best for Bridget, and, while they may not quite realize it, take a slightly patronizing view of her. She's impulsive yet indecisive, haughty yet hilarously insecure. She's like that little dumb friend you may have had in high school-the one you may not have expected to amount to much, but you kept around anyway because it was just so much fun watching him or her screw up. In this case, that friend may surprise you.

Bridget's self-absorption and dogged inability to follow her better judgment could easily have put readers off. Instead they draw us in, humanizing her to a degree that some of the author's peers should envy. We take pleasure in holding ourselves above her, priding ourselves on the knowledge that we surely know better than to act as Bridget does in these situations. At the same time, we still fervently hope that our flawed heroine will triumph in spite of herself in the end.