Bridget Jones's Diary
The romantic comedy of its era. A shameless reworking of Pride and Prejudice that somehow recaptured everything Austen understood about how love is obscured by self-consciousness and social performance. Bridget's voice is the voice of everyone who has ever confused themselves about their own desires, and Darcy's love for her is all the more satisfying because she is so gloriously imperfect.
Critics tire fast of Bridget's constant self-attack over her weight, especially given how little she actually weighs; “tone of this book is just off,” writes one, and another goes further, branding her “pathetic and self-absorbed woman who does nothing but moan.” The diary headers, tallying weight, cigarettes, and alcohol units, wear thin well before the back half. The plot itself reads thin too, the characters “flaccid, half-dimensional characterisation; sickeningly pat plotting,” with Daniel Cleaver's workplace flirtation landing now like harassment played for laughs. Several reviewers say the 2001 film simply outpaces the book, and at least one names Bridget “one of the worst literary characters I have ever come across.”
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
