The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole

Book excerpt: “Townsend’s wit is razor sharp” as her self-proclaimed intellectual adolescent hero continues his hilarious angst-filled secret diary (TheMirror). I can’t wait until I am fully mature and can make urban conversation with intellectuals. Growing up among inferiors in Great Britain isn’t easy for a sensitive fifteen-year-old “poet of the Midlands” like Adrian Mole, considering everything in the world is conspiring to scar him for life: His hormones are in a maelstrom; his mother is pregnant (at her age!); his girlfriend, Pandora, is in shutdown; radio stardom isn’t panning out; he’s become allergic to non-precious metals; and passing his exams is as dire a crisis as the Falkland Islands. From weathering a profound but shaky romance with the love of his life to negotiating his parents’ reconciliation to writing his poetry on restroom walls (why on earth did he sign his name?), “Adrian Mole is as engaging as ever” (Time Out). The sequel to the beloved TheSecret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ continues Adrian’s chronicle of angst, which has sold more than twenty million copies worldwide, and been adapted for television and staged as a musical. Adrian Mole is truly “a phenomenon” (The Washington Post).