Rating: 
Summary: Live Aid Redux would have been a better title!
Review: I thought this book was mildly amusing. Oliver is such a typical roguish, wildly handsome cad, and Rosie is just the naif to fall for him. Isn't it amazing how hard and fast we can fall for people, especially the ones who are just plain no good for us!?!? The redeeming quality of this book was Rosie's ability to turn a bad situation into something good and constructive and generous to others. Does it matter if your motives for getting involved with world aid and volunteer work are initially 100% selfish if eventually you end up helping others? Apparently not. Interesting description of refugee camps... sounded pretty hands-on, unless you can ascribe the red-tape beauracracy experienced there to any other work environment. The actors and other blow-kisses-in-the-air characters were vapid and empty... guess they played their roles to a T! I thought the model was particularly amusing... pretending to be Namibian (whatever the country was) for some publicity. I thought the ending was totally predictable. I definitely enjoyed Bridget Jones much more, but I guess Ms. Fielding had to get her feet wet somewhere... in the arid, parched land of Africa. P.S., More acknowledgement should have been given to Bob Geldoff!
Rating: 
Summary: _Almost_ as good as Bridget Jones . . .
Review: After a desperately awful blind date I reread Bridget Jones' Diary (very therapeutic) and then went in search of more Helen Fielding. I liked Cause Celebre, particularly the interactions between Rosie Richardson and the diabolical Oliver. The depiction of the African famine is interesting and unsentimental. The book isn't as tight or as confident as Bridget Jones, but it's a hell of a first novel. I wait impatiently for Fielding's next book.
Rating: 
Summary: engrossing, thoughtful, NOT Bridget Jones, but a great read
Review: I am amazed that Cause Celeb was written by the same author as Bridget Jones. This is a fascinating book with interesting characters. I'd recommend it to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Major disappointment, characters weak & undeveloped
Review: Having read Bridget Jones & Fielding's lastest novel I was excited to read Cause Celeb. From the very beginning I was disappointed. The lead character is not really developed & she makes choice that I cannot understand or respect. She ended up driving me nuts, as did almost every character in the book. The dialogue for certain characters, like Nadia & Andre, was very annoying & was hard to read smoothly. There is also very little humor or romance in this book. While you feel for the refugee story the rest of it is pure cr*p and should be avoided.
Rating:
Summary: Kind of boring!
Review: I am a huge fan of the Bridget Jones books. This is clearly not Bridget Jones. It took me awhile to get into the story and a lot of the book felt like it was plodding along. I felt as if I had to force myself to finish certain chapters, which is not a good sign! I never actually finished the book - I left a chapter or two unread. I just couldn't force myself to finish it.
Rating:
Summary: Just never quite comes together
Review: The 2 stars are strictly for the London portion of Rosie's life - which has much of Fielding's talent for humor in romance. But as soon as Rosie's story gets serious, it fails. Granted, as other reviewers pointed out, most of us reading this were attracted by the fact that Helen Fielding is the author. But she had a way to go before she honed the skills that made Bridet Jones so enjoyable to read.
Rating:
Summary: Bridget Jones gets serious--Kingsolveresque
Review: OK, it's perhaps not quite fair to describe this book in terms of Bridget Jones, since Fielding wrote it several years before Bridget Jones' Diary. But it's probably a safe bet that anybody reading it has already read Bridget Jones or seen the movie... and I would argue that in every respect-- form, elegance, sureness of itself-- Bridget Jones is a better book. The writing is that much more mature.But, the two books are really in completely different genres. Where Bridget Jones' Diary practically defined a whole new chick-lit, the literary equivalent of Sex and the City (the columns by Candace Bushnell of that name are halfway between journalism and fiction, so I'd say Fielding really broke the ground that would soon be followed by Confessions of a Shopaholic, etc), Cause Celeb is closer to a kind of female coming-of-age Holden Caulfield lite than it is to comedy of manners. True, many of the chapters do send up the culture of celebrity, and they are well handled. But Rosie Richardson's transformation from Bridget-like young-woman-in-publishing-involved-with-selfish-man to a relief worker is real, and very serious. Not only does she leave for Africa with no regrets, she becomes a very competent head of the program, and stays for four years. MOST of the book takes place in the fictional country of Nambula, hovering on the edge of a famine and crisis. Fielding's attention to detail is wonderful, and she clearly knows what she writes about. It reminded me a lot of Barbara Kingsolver and her young heroines in Africa in Poisonwood Bible. When we finally get to the plot to have Rosie's old pals come and do a benefit the book becomes more interesting, but never really soars into the broad, hilarious satire it's described as being. This is Evelyn Waugh territory, but sentimental where Waugh is cutting, sad where Waugh would be cynical... so that it hovers uncertainly between Kingsolver-like punch and later-Fielding like panache. For me, the more interesting chapters were the flashbacks to London, and the horrible people Fielding gleefully lances. And this was most effectively handled before Rosie grew a conscience and suddenly fell out of love with her newscaster boyfriend and with the shallow life. That is where Rosie's character is most vivid, and where Fielding's writing really shines. When she goes back to London to round up the celebrities, the cynical portratis are funny-- but teeter on self-righteoous. It's easier to like Rosie when she doesn't tell us what to think of the celebrities or of herself. There are some great characters in Africa too, but the love interest there is underplayed. Reading this has me more impressed with Fielding's range than I was, but very grateful she turned to the wonderful comedy she now writes. There, she's a unique, precious talent. Still, worth a read if you're interested in the life of a relief worker and in Africa!
Rating: 
Summary: Finally a heroine I can respect
Review: I'm a huge fan of Helen Fielding and really loved the first Bridget book (not so much the second one). But, I have to say I loved Cause Celeb even more. Rosie is a heroine you can really get behind. The camp scenes are suprisingly moving and riveting. I had picked this book about a year ago but never got around to reading it until now. I'm sure glad I finally did.
Rating:
Summary: Television tribes
Review: We are in Africa, obviously, if we are talking about huts. In Africa decent rains might produce conditions for locusts. In Africa the group from the compound encounters hunger and refugee settlements. Rosie Richardson had a relationship with Oliver Marchant. Unfortunately Oliver was not very nice. At the start of the affair his assistant called her to set up a date. She was fed up with her job and had no bargaining power with Oliver. She went to a party with Oliver and threw up because the drinks were so strong. Perhaps Oliver Marchand and Africa were both versions of Rosie's masochism. Rosie became haunted by images of Africa. She sold all of her clothes to a place called Second Thoughts. She would give the proceeds to Oxfam. Rosie said they did not have to live in luxury and make token gestures. Rosie decided she wanted to go work in Africa. Oscar asked to marry her but no, she was off to Nambula, a fictitious place created by the author. The camp was different at night, foreign and inaccessible. They had 110 arrivals and 5 deaths in one day. People were coming because of the locusts. Next there were 440 arrivals and 19 deaths. The aid workers traveled from Nambula to Kefti to meet the stream of people. They saw locusts decimate fields of crops, meaning--nothing would be available for at least six months. The workers showed photographs of the situation in Kefti to UN officials. Rosie determined to return to London to get the story into the press and to get some celebrities to support the cause. She finds it hard going since for the last four years she had been working in Africa in a refugee camp. Now there was the crisis of the famine but her contacts through Oliver had withered. She runs into Oliver and feels humiliated. He chides her that she is going about things the wrong way. With a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing a television spot is arranged. When Rosie returns to Africa with Oliver and some of the other celebrities she learns that the compound had received help in her absence. The team goes out to seek the people fleeing the locusts. They did find some starving masses. They surmount the problem of positioning to make a television feed. Oliver falls in the rough terrain and one of the African men substitutes for him. He says that year after year the grain mountains and the colossal budgets in the developed countries fail to reach the starving people on time. A friend of the announcer is shown dying. After the broadcst the population at the refugee camp doubles and a lot of journalists visit. Food is received from the celebrity goup, Charitable Acts.
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