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A review by storysteph
The Secret Diary & Growing Pains of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ by Sue Townsend
4.0
Okay, so. I sought this book out because I watched a video where a dude bought one of those "color by the yard" things, where you just buy a bunch of books that are the same color for purely decorative reasons (I'll spare you my rant on that), but he actually read the books. One of them was The Adrian Mole Diaries, and YouTube Guy was raving about how great it actually was. So of course, I had to find out for myself
And it's good! I enjoyed it! But here's the thing: it's very, very dated. So many cultural references (hot pink leg warmers, VCRs being a new thing) and people (hmph. *Thatcher*) that were straight out of the early 80s, and I was able to catch pretty much all of them because I was a very young but still present part of the early 80s myself. The book even includes a reference dictionary at the end, cleverly disguised as a letter from Aiden's American friend Hamish asking for explanations of things he didn't understand in Aiden's story. Despite all this, though, I would hesitate to refer it to anyone born in the 21st century. The humor is there in spades, but only if you have the right frame of reference to catch it. You don't *need* a strong grasp of cultural and political happenings in England in 1982 to follow the action and jokes, but it helps. I dunno, man. I enjoyed it, at any rate.
And it's good! I enjoyed it! But here's the thing: it's very, very dated. So many cultural references (hot pink leg warmers, VCRs being a new thing) and people (hmph. *Thatcher*) that were straight out of the early 80s, and I was able to catch pretty much all of them because I was a very young but still present part of the early 80s myself. The book even includes a reference dictionary at the end, cleverly disguised as a letter from Aiden's American friend Hamish asking for explanations of things he didn't understand in Aiden's story. Despite all this, though, I would hesitate to refer it to anyone born in the 21st century. The humor is there in spades, but only if you have the right frame of reference to catch it. You don't *need* a strong grasp of cultural and political happenings in England in 1982 to follow the action and jokes, but it helps. I dunno, man. I enjoyed it, at any rate.