Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years

Book excerpt: Can an adult still have a secret diary? Everyone’s favorite angsty adolescent Brit is now a tormented twentysomething and still “a brilliant comic creation” (The Times). Question: What have I done with my life? Answer: Nothing. At 23¾ years old, Adrian Mole is now an adult and almost prepared. On the upside: He’s fallen for a perfectly lovely Nigerian waitress; he’s seeing a therapist so as to talk about himself without interruption; and he’s added vowels to his experimental novel-in-progress (so much more accessible to the masses!). The downside? Pandora is probably history; a pea-brained rival has been published before him to great acclaim; and worse, Adrian realizes he may not be uncommon after all. In fact, he may fall somewhere within the range of normalcy. How can an intellectual be expected to live with that? “Thank God for Sue Townsend and Adrian Mole” (The Observer). Her “achingly funny anti-hero” (Daily Mail) returns to take the world by storm—or least weather it—in the beloved bestselling series from “one of Britain’s most celebrated comic writers” (The Guardian). Adrian’s continuing chronicle of angst has sold more than twenty million copies worldwide, and been adapted for television and staged as a musical—truly “a phenomenon” (The Washington Post).