Please don’t look at the date because this is extraordinarily late. But that accidentally rhymed so- it all evens out, right? I finished four books in April and three of them were one/two-day-reads. Most of my reading time was taken up listening to the audiobook of my new favourite, Lolita. And boy, I’m going to need an entire post to unravel that one!
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
I loved this book. I loved it. And I have a lot of feelings about it that I need to write so look out for that.
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The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend
So it got to the 19th and I realised I hadn’t finished an entire book so far in April. So I looked at the 500+ books I have on my TBR and picked out something I knew I could read fast and would probably enjoy. I might’ve been a little off with my choice.
Don’t get me wrong, I read this fast (in a day) and it was entertaining to a degree but I got to the end of the book and was like- okay. Even now, I really can’t really think of anything to say. It’s a diary by a 13 year-old boy who is just a real rat bag. It has some really dated and offensive terms considering it’s only 30+ years old. For example, Adrian wishes his father wouldn’t wear an apron while cleaning because “he looks like a poofter in it”. And Pandora has long hair “like girls’ hair should be”. Urg.
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The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend
I’m not one for continuing series if I don’t love the first book but something about book one taking me a day to read, pushed me to pick up the next. It would’ve taken longer if I didn’t enjoy it a little, right? This also didn’t take long to read and it was amusing, but not laugh-out-loud funny. Adrian gets a little more self-aware but also more pompous. I get that he’s supposed to be an immature teenage boy but he’s just utterly unlikable.
✮✮
True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole by Sue Townsend
Say hello to my breaking point! This was the last Adrian Mole book that I owned from the series, and also the only one I hadn’t read as a kid. It doesn’t have just the usual diary format. It starts with a letter from Sue Townsend talking about the book as if Adrian is real (he’s not) which is very strange? It then goes onto diary entries, letters and essays that he’s ‘written’ and therefore wasn’t as quick or easy to read. Even as an adult, he is still the worst kind of pompous man. For example; “I never read bestsellers on principle. It’s a good rule of thumb. If the masses like it them I’m sure that I won’t.” Can’t you just imagine him mansplaining what a metaphor is to an English professor?
That goes on for 90 pages, then turns over to a diary from Sue Townsend. That’s 50 pages of no-plot. Then we get 20 pages of a fictional teenage Margret Thatcher diary. Now, I’m from the North and therefore I was born disliking Thatcher. But I have no interest in reading a diary written by someone who clearly doesn’t like her either and needs to villainize her as a teenager. It was just strange. A weird end to a chaotic 160 page mess that was still priced at £7.99.
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Imogen's Typewriter. 