Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

 genre: contemporary fiction

Bridget Jones knows how to MAKE goals: get a new boyfriend, loose weight, smoke fewer cigarettes per day etc.  Keeping those goals isn't as easy as making them but luckily, Bridget's not one to give up.  She's got her eye on Daniel, her handsome boss - NOT on that Mark Darcy her parent's and their friends want her to hook up with.  And through Bridget's diary we get to learn all about her efforts at finding personal fulfillment, the horrors of being single and the nuttiness of her family.

I chose this because I needed to read a 1990s bestseller and while parts of it are funny, so much of it just made me wince or feel sad for her!  I got so tired of the fat shaming, that's my biggest gripe.  And there is more than one offensive reference to Jews or to Muslims, yes it's poking fun in a joking way and maybe in the 90s you'd have laughed it off but now it just feels tone deaf.  I wanted so much for Bridget to get out of her own way and find happiness, and parts did actually make me chuckle out loud, but by the end I was okay to be done.