Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years - Hardcover

Townsend, Sue

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1569472041 ISBN 13: 9781569472040

Publisher: Soho Press, 2000

Synopsis

The latest addition to the Adrian Mole saga uses his diaries to focus on life at the age of thirty, after his breakup with his Nigerian wife. 15,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

In addition to the Adrian Mole series, Sue Townsend's novels include The Queen and I, Rebuilding Coventry, and Ghost Children, all available from Soho Press. She lives in Leicester, England.

Reviews

Townsend's hilarious, uniquely British creation, Adrian Mole, first appeared on the literary scene as a spotty teenager in 1982 with the publication of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13\. Mole has become a lovable, frustrated intellectual whose misguided introspectiveness and rash impulsiveness keep him on a cycle of failure and rebound. In this amusing sixth book in the series, Adrian, now 30, is divorced and the father of two sons (William, almost three years old, and Glenn, 12). His good friends are still around: old flame Pandora "we adore ya" Braithwaite has been elected a Labour MP by capitalizing on her short, tight skirts to win votes; best friend Nigel is trying to figure out how to tell his family he's gay. To Adrian's horror, his parents swap partners with Pandora's parentsDand his dad discovers Viagra. Despite his ineptitude at cooking, Adrian works as the head chef at a snooty restaurant called Hoi Polloi, which specializes in "execrable nursery food." It is typical of Townsend's humor that characters are feted for what they are not (AdrianDtemporarilyDgets his own cooking show, "Offally Good!") and unacknowledged for what they are (no one recognizes Adrian's responsible honesty as a father). Throughout, Townsend's lively prose sparkles, giving life to the myriad trivial events of Adrian's day. Adrian makes the inevitable comparison to Bridget Jones: "The woman is obsessed with herself!... She writes as though she were the only person in the world to have problems." Mole composes a brief letter to Jones, asking if she has any advice for getting his diaries published. It's a good thing for readers that Townsend figured out how to do that a long time ago. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Townsend continues the crisply hilarious saga of Britain's favorite fictional diarist, Adrian Mole. First introduced as a boy in The Adrian Mole Diaries (1986) and revisited during his highly opinionated and wildly hopeful adolescence in Adrian Mole: The Lost Years (1994), Townsend's diary-keeping hero is now 30 years old and still spectacularly and endearingly inept. His latest journal begins in 1997 after his gorgeous and accomplished Nigerian wife has left him and their 2-year-old son, William, who eats nothing but Coco Puffs and spends most of his time with Adrian's flinty mother, while Adrian's perennially depressed father stays in bed, and Adrian's teenage sister fumes and curses. Adrian camps out above the retro-trendy restaurant Hoi Polloi, where he is head chef even though he can't cook, an irrelevancy given their cuisine: the very worst of English fare with an emphasis on offal. Adrian, who dreams of making it big as a television writer, gets a break when he is invited to host a cable show titled Offally Good! and to write a companion cookbook, but chronically hapless and naive, he flubs both opportunities. Meanwhile, his first love, the sexy and unavailable Pandora Braithwaite, wins a seat in the House of Commons, and their parents, much to their children's horror, enact the "Great Mole/Braithwaite Partner Swap." From losing his job to finding an incipient bald spot to discovering that he has another son, Adrian is a comic Job in a world gone mad with irony and greed. But his confused heart brims with love and good intentions, and Townsend skewers end-of-the millennium Britain with acumen and glee. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

On the eve of Tony Blair's election, Adrian Mole discovers that he is losing his hair. And so begins the latest installment in the "Adrian Mole" saga, which began with the popular and entertaining The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 133/4, published here in 1984. Now in his "cappucino years," Adrian is a single father and chef who struggles financially. His personal life continues to be complicated by his dysfunctional family, his still unrequited love for Pandora Braithwaite, and the revelation that he is father to not one but two sons. Pandora compares Adrian's life to a "situation comedy," and Townsend tries to ring humor from Adrian's failure in his various roles, which include husband, son, and writer. It is not until the end of the book that he finds some redemption in his role as father. And therein lies the greatest single flaw in this bookDthe teenage angst that was so funny in the younger Adrian wears thin in a man in his 30s who whines about his struggles to define himself as an adult. This is sure to be requested by loyal Mole fans, but its appeal to new readers will be limited.DCaroline M. Hallsworth, Sudbury P.L., Ontario
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Soho Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1569472041
• ISBN 13: 9781569472040
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 390