It looks as though Townsend was trying to break away from the compulsion to write sequels: the next few years of Adrian's life after Growing pains are compressed into a few letters and radio talks, and the book is padded out with a few pieces of Townsend's journalism in her own voice, as well as the short but very funny Margaret Hilda Roberts, a fragment from the diary of a neurotically overachieving schoolgirl growing up as a grocer's daughter in the thirties. She helps her father water down the dandelion & burdock, ticks off poor people for their improvidence and her headmistress for inefficiency, and has the local bobby arrest an unemployed cyclist called Tebbit for vagrancy. Townsend claims to have found this at a car-boot sale in Grantham, and expresses her regret that we have no way of knowing what happened to Margaret in later life... ( )

The third installment of diary entries of Adrian Mole, transcripts of Adrian's Pirate Radio Four programs, extracts from Sue Townsend's own diaries, and diary entries from a teenage girl called Margaret Hilda Roberts (hmm...). This installment has some good parts in it, but since it contains short pieces of different writings, it's not quite as coherent as the previous books. The audiobook has different narrators for the different characters and they are all good, although Margaret sounds more like a child than she is supposed to be. ( )

This one made me feel dumb 'cause I didn't get what she was trying to do with it. I liked the Adrian bits, but what the heck was everything else? ( )

Clever but not my type of book.

This is the third book in the Adrian Mole series, but unlike the others, it is only partly in diary form. His story is interspersed with letters to Barry Kent (now incarcerated) and his broadcasts on Radio 4 which show off his customary delusion and visions of grandeur.

Also included in the book are the funny diaries of a teenage girl in the 1930s, named Margaret Hilda Roberts. It is obvious to the reader that these are supposed to be the diaries of the young Margaret Thatcher - these parts are particularly cruel and witty, and were actually my favourites parts of the book overall.

The book also has a collection of essays by Sue Townsend, the main one being her recollection of a trip to Russia which she took with six other writers. Unlike the Adrian Mole and Hilda Roberts section, this part is non-fiction.

Unfortunately, this book was not up to the standard of the Adrian Mole books which preceded it. The book is only about 160 pages, and Mole's section is 90 or so pages - yet it covers 5 years of his life, and effectively acts as a bridge between the book which comes before it and the one which comes after it. As ever, Adrian indulges in a fair amount of navel gazing, and swooning over his beloved Pandora, but this episode of his life did not grab me as much as the others I have read did.

I was not over enamoured with the essays by Sue Townsend. Her writing flowed well, and there were some moments which made me smile, but it felt like 'filler' material, added to pad the book out.

The diaries of Margaret Hilda Roberts however, were very funny, and it's a shame that this was such a small segment. Townsend shows her satirical side portraying Margaret as a haughty and snobbish schoolgirl, with am admiration for capitalist beliefs and an active dislike of the working class.

Overall, a less than satisfying episode of Adrian Mole's life, but I would have loved to have seen the diaries of Margaret Hilda Roberts developed into a full length book. ( )