On the HahaFiction shelf
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾
Adrian Mole · Book 1 · 1982
Audiobook available · 5 hr 15 min
Adrian Mole is certain that he has the makings of an intellectual. His diary records the less accommodating facts of teenage life: spots, school, his feelings for Pandora and parents whose marriage is in trouble. He gives each disappointment the attention he thinks a future great writer deserves.
From the publisher’s blurb
“his life as a tortured poet and 'misunderstood intellectual'”Read the full description at Penguin description
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What makes it funny?
Adrian repeatedly records his mother’s failure to wear the apron he bought her for Christmas. He takes the rejected present as a grievance without questioning the gift. His spot gets a similarly solemn diagnosis: the family diet, and therefore his mother, must be to blame.
The comedy at work
Townsend lets Adrian explain himself with complete confidence. Readers can see the selfishness and misunderstanding in judgments he considers reasonable, while the short diary entries keep returning to the same small obsessions.
Try this if…
The private-diary format suits readers who enjoy a narrator revealing more than he intends. Teenage embarrassment is the immediate subject, but BookTrust also recommends the book’s humor to adults who can recognize the gaps in Adrian’s understanding.
Good to know
The diary covers 1981 into early 1982. Puberty and sexual curiosity appear alongside drinking and the strain of his parents’ marriage, so its adolescent viewpoint includes difficult family experiences.
A few distinguishing details
- A would-be intellectual undone by ordinary adolescence
- An unwanted Christmas apron as a recurring grievance
More funny coming of age
Sources & further reading
- BookTrust review
Review
- Publisher sample
Reading sample
- Listening Books audiobook
Library catalog
- Publisher
Publisher
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