Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Fielding said Bridget had to be a singleton for this to work. Wrong. Fielding brilliantly navigated the singleton wonders and woes in the previous books. That mine is empty. WHY, oh why, did she feel the need to do a depressing replay of what worked so well two times before? I don't believe women -- in general -- really want younger men. Hard body, undeveloped mind? Not interesting to me. But the biggest shame, to me, is that Fielding didn't bother to challenge herself to actually move Bridget along -- into the challenges, difficulties and rampant boredoms that lap at the shorelines of any long-term relationship. Killing off a character doesn't make this great literature. It makes this book a great bore. When the author killed off Mark (supposedly to show us that life doesn't always have happy endings) she killed off the spark that made Bridget's story work. And, does Fielding really think that her readers thought any of Bridget's story was realistic in the first place? I'll read Tolstoy or Edith Wharton if I want to encounter life's inevitable tragedies. I've had lots of heartache and loss in my own life since I first read Bridget's story and I did NOT need her...or Fielding...to show me that life doesn't always work out the way we want. How much more interesting this book could have been if the author had been willing to consider Bridget and Mark rediscovering each other, or facing some challenge coming from their very different personality styles. Yes. Bridget aged. Well, so have I. And I don't want to read about her being in the very same place she was when I first loved her. It's just ugly, sad, and unfulfilling. She was a modern-day Jane Austen heroine. Now she's a parody of herself starring in a Keystone Cops version of maturity. Bleh. It's an insult to those of us who loved Bridget...and Mark.