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Rating: 
Summary: A laugh-out-loud read
Review: "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 3/4" is hilarious, a lot of the time painfully so. It chronicles the turbulent adolescence of the idiosyncratic Adrian through the time he turns fifteen. There are highlights consistently throughout the story, such as his submissions of poetry to the BBC (and the letters he consequently receives in return), his romance with the memorable Pandora Braithwaite, and his occasional references to a magazine called "Big & Bouncy" which he keeps hidden under his mattress. Author Sue Townsend's writing is entertaining and funny throughout, and this book is a welcome change from the plethora of "teen diaries" that seem to dominate every library and bookstore's young adult section.
Rating:
Summary: A laugh-out-loud read
Review: "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 3/4" is hilarious, a lot of the time painfully so. It chronicles the turbulent adolescence of the idiosyncratic Adrian through the time he turns fifteen. There are highlights consistently throughout the story, such as his submissions of poetry to the BBC (and the letters he consequently receives in return), his romance with the memorable Pandora Braithwaite, and his occasional references to a magazine called "Big & Bouncy" which he keeps hidden under his mattress. Author Sue Townsend's writing is entertaining and funny throughout, and this book is a welcome change from the plethora of "teen diaries" that seem to dominate every library and bookstore's young adult section.
Rating:
Summary: A Book about Love, Troubles and Friendships
Review: Do you like funny books? Then you will definitly like the book "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4", by Sue Townsend. This book is about a young boy named Adrian Mole. Adrian goes to a school in Britian. He has a best friend's name is Nigel. Everything is going pretty bad for Adrian until a new girl comes to his school. Her name is Pandora. Adrian thinks that he might be in love with Pandora because he has a lot of feelings for her, until Nigel asks Pandora to be his girlfriend! Adrian is mad about the situation. Not only is he upset about Nigel and Pandora, he is also mad about his parents. His parents are fighting consistantly. With Adrian's mother spending a lot of time with the neighbor husband and with his father always drunk or sick , what is he supposed to do with so much complication in his life? This is a great story to read and can relate to a lot of peoples' lives. Read this book to find out if Adrian will ever get a chance with Pandora or if his parents will ever stop fighting.
Rating:
Summary: A must read!
Review: I read The Adrian Mole Diaries and I found me cursing myself for not laying my hands on this book earlier! Every guy who has passed his teens relates to this book and surely has some Adrian in him. Its a great book written in simple words. Its refreshing to come across some very typical British words and terms!
This is a must read book and I would strongly suggest this to anyone who travels alone or has to travel with boaring company!
Rating:
Summary: Adrian Mole is ESSENTIAL reading
Review: If Charles Shultz's saying "Happiness isn't funny" is true, then this book by definition qualifies as hilarious. Adrian Mole isn't just a teenager with typical adolescent angst; he's smack dab in the middle of Thatcher's Britain, on the wrong side of the tracks. His parents are on the skids, he has neither dress sense, social grace, looks, intelligence, nor wit, but believes himself to be intellectual and artistically gifted. Menaced and robbed by skinheads at school on a daily basis, pining for a middle-class girl on the fast-track to the upper class he'd so desperately want to join... he is the absolute metaphor for a latter 20th century England that is no longer on the cutting edge of anything, and, like a teenager realising subconsciously he has no future, dealing with the reality that it will never live up to its past glory or future expectations. Savagely skewering the class system, granola-crunching intellectuals, adolescence, Thatcherism, and life in the Midlands, Sue Townsend has executed a real stroke of brilliance in making Mole so clueless. As the moron he is, he cannot filter nor embellish the truth that goes on around him, but reports it through his own naive eyes. This lets us see, for example, that his best friend is less than sane with a serious identity crisis, without the psychobabble. These are dark, brutal books and could easily be rewritten as black tragedies... much of the humor comes from a sense of "Dei gratia sum quod sum." Yet they are funnier still for being so. If you are British or British-ex-pat or in a British-inspired country like Canada or Australia, you WILL see people you know in these characters. This really is essential reading.
Rating:
Summary: On of my favorites, (probably will be one of yours!)
Review: If you're reading this review, congratulations, you're either thinking of reading this book or you have read it and are looking for other's opinions. This is one of the best books ever, with witty realism combined with the absurd thoughts that all teenage boys have had.
Meet psuedo-intellectual Adrian Mole, a constant struggler, from his girlfriend Pandora, to trying to get his hapless poems (some about the Norwegian leather industry!!!) published, and the old codger, Burt who he visits all the time. Occasionally, he is charming, but mostly he is just goofy. His adventures are too numerous to mention on paper, (or a computer screen) you'll just have to enjoy them for yourself. His disfunctional family and life are hilarious.
I'm curious as to how a woman understands so much about how a guy can feel sometimes. If you are a teenager, used to be one, are going to be one, dated one, are a parent to one, whatever, you should help yourself understand that teenager in your life by reading this book.
Rating:
Summary: A Book about Love, Troubles and Friendships
Review: My mother has had a copy of this book for ages, and when I finally read it a few years ago I wanted to kick myself for not reading it sooner! I have read Adrian's account countless times since, because I just can't get enough of his crazy world. Perhaps what I appreciate most about this teenage boy survival story is the format. It is a great personal diary which Adrian keeps up on a daily basis. Adrian is so naive and oblivious and is at once completely lovable. This innocence or ignorance of his is probably what makes the book so humorous; he honestly has no idea why a girl would be offended if he compared her eyes to those of his dog! Townsend must have been a teenage boy in another life I always reckon; and being a girl myself, I have always found Adrian's trials and tribulations very entertaining and informative. The fact of the matter is, Sue Townsend has created a character with a life completely of his own. Adrian and his family and friends will always have a place in my heart. This book is a supreme resource for those interested in working-class Britain of the 1980s.
Sue Townsend has also produced books chronicling Adrian's adult years, which are also worth reading, but nothing compares with the diaries of Adrian's turbulent formulative teenage years. Another good Townsend book is The Queen and I, a fantasy which accounts the abdication of the royal family and their struggles as regular working class folks.
Rating:
Summary: I laughed till I cried.
Review: People who find out I read a lot sometimes ask, "What's the best book you ever read?" That is a question that's impossible to answer. I might be able to name the best baseball book I ever read or the best Jane Austen novel or the best biography of a political figure or the best historical fiction set in the middle ages or the best teen-age romance. But if anyone ever asks me, "What's the funniest book you ever read?" this one will be my answer. This is the only book I've ever read that made me laugh out loud so hard I cried at the same time. This happened during the scene in which Adrian is contemplating running away and/or committing suicide and feeling exceedingly sorry for himself. I felt at the time it was cruel of me to be laughing over this poor adolescent's pain, but that just made it funnier. I was sitting at the kitchen table at the time, and the other members of the family who passed by thought I was nuts and said so. Everyone's sense of humor is different. I like my humor dry and understated. I can't stand slapstick. I was about forty when I read this. Maybe you have to be old enough to look back on the agonies of adolescence and not give a rat's tail to enjoy this book.
Rating:
Summary: Probably the funniest comic character in Britain
Review: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole and the Growing Pains of Adrian Mole are, for me, the funniest in Sue Townsend's Mole series. They chronicle the agonised musings of Adrian - a sensitive intellectual, struggling with his parents, his mercurial girlfriend Pandora, his friends, Barry Kent - the school bully and the burdens of life in a cul-de-sac in 1980s Leicester.
Sue Townsend has a sharp eye for finding comedy in the minutae in British provincial life and Adrian Mole will make you laugh, cringe and despair in equal measures. The later books in the series, featuring the diaries of Adrian Mole in his adult life, while less funny than the first two, are also well worth reading for Mole fans.
Rating: 
Summary: Another must-read for adolescents
Review: This is not a well-known book. In fact, I think I just found it somewhere in Amsterdam or Switzerland when I was a child (1980's), and I picked it up for the hell of it.
I can't believe this book is not included in the halls of classic children's literature. It's funny, often realistic, and very insightful.
There is so much about Adrian's thoughts, feelings, and misadventures that speaks to all of us. I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me this is really someone's diary.
Also included are details about modern British history. There is something to learn there, as well.
This one's definitely a sleeper. Get it!
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