I love the Adrian Mole books... So much so that when I saw someone reading The Cappuccino Years on the train just after it had been released I went straight up to them and said "oh my god is that a new Adrian Mole book" and instead of thinking I was a psycho they were just as excited as me. I was on my way into the city so I went to the nearest bookshop and bought it. When The Weapons of Mass Destruction was released I was working in the 'Giant Arsehole Bookstore' and instructed the stockroom staff to call me immediately when they unpacked the box with it in. So it was with great excitement that I was walking through a bookstore the other day and I happened to see Adrian Mole: The Lost Diaries staring at me from the shelves. I immediately picked it up and started to head to the counter, but something made me stop. It could have been the $33 price tag for a paperback (the rest of my collection is in hardback) Something told me to stop and wait. The library had it and remarkably it had no reserves. I devoured it in a day but am glad I didn't buy it. Frankly, it was a letdown. I was set in between the two books I have previously mentioned (which were among the better of the novels.) I got the feeling this was either a contractual agreement thing or a money making scheme or something because it didn't read with the humour and empathy of the other books (and I had heard that Sue Townsend wasn't going to write anymore AM books). The other thing about it is that this book is not even listed on the official Adrian Mole Website... there is something funny going on here! There were parts of the storyline that I thought didn't seem right (and when I read back over the WMD book I was right, there were inconsistencies) I am disappointed, but this doesn't spoil the rest of the books for me.
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