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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.
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Summary: Great Book
Review: A truly entertaining chronicle of a english teenage boy. I read it growing up and it remains a favorite to this day. I even watched to British television show they made out of it. Highly enjoyable.
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Summary: Ball Bouncingly Funny!
Review: Ah, yes. Now in my thirties I remember when I was a spotty, sex-craved teenager who listened to The Smiths all day and complained about my parents. Then my high school English teacher made us read this book and my life looked absolutley fantastic!! At least I was not a part of the Mole family and at least I was not Adrian. But the way Adrian deals with his 'lusts' is absolutley spot-on. Big n' Bouncy indeed! Having said that, he is a wonderful character who is at the same time as funny as he is sad. His mum and dad are wonderfully written and it is easy to understand everyone's prediciment (except for the gran). Of course, the dog deserves the St. George's Cross for all the pain it is put through. Also, read The Queen and I. Wonderful.
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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.
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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.
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Summary: The Diary of the Hypochondriac Nerd
Review: This book is dead brill! A bit dated in parts, but such is life. Adrian, would-be intellectual, full-time hypochondriac, part-time carer to the aged (against his will), and all-around social observer, is a teenager you have probably met. he tries too hard to be himself and in the end is as barmy as a fruitbat. Townsend's style is joyous and rarely hits a sour note; young Master Mole and The Love Of His Life Pandora are marvelous; the Familia Mole (extended and temporary) are insane in a normal kind of way. This book looks at the normal world through the eyes of a child on raging hormones and scattered education who might himself be off his chum by just a tad. Read it and groan all over again over those teenage years of bliss we all weathered...
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