Introduction
I can't help but warm to Adrian. One of fiction's hopeless cases - socially, he he partakes of all the usual teenage things (kissing, flirting, going to the odd party, sneaking a bit of illicit alcohol here and there) but there's something about his personality that isolates him. ... Read review
The troubled life of Adrian Mole continues in this sequel to "The Secret Diary of Adrian ... more
Mole Aged 13 3/4". Adrian continues to struffle valiantly against the slings and arrows of growing up and his own family's attempts to scar him for life.
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole is the second in the series to be a part of Penguin's Sue ... more
Townsend repackaging programme. It offers a chance to sell Sue Townsend to a whole new audience! The troubled teenager continues to struggle valiantly against the slings and arrows of growing up and his own family's attempts to scar him for life. In between the ups and downs of his relationship with the divine Pandora and worrying that his genius is going unrecognized Adrian Mole chronicles the pains and pleasures of a misspent adolescence. 'The new book takes up the diary where the last left off and is quite as classic' - Financial Times.
Postage & Packaging:£0.00 Availability:3-5 working days
A troubled teenager continues to struggle valiantly against the slings and arrows of ... more
growing up and his own family's attempts to scar him for life. In between the ups and downs of his relationship with the divine Pandora and worrying that his genius is going unrecognized, Adrian Mole chronicles the pains and pleasures of a misspent adolescence.
Advantages: Would suit teenagers and adults alike Disadvantages: Today's teenagers might have to look up the 1980s references
...Kent and his gang - Adrian comes across as someone who is always going to be different, and not quite accepted - but then again he believes himself to be an "undiscovered intellectual" so in a way, he carries on regardless, thinking that he is more sophisticated and educationally superior to Barry. Yet in some ways, Adrian is from a very average, working-class world and despite his lofty ambitions he is overwhelmingly concerned with the ... .../> The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole is about the same age as me - published in 1984, the short novel follows on from Sue Townsend's The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4, and covers his life between April 1982 and June 1983, ending just before he takes his O Levels. Although written in diary format, Sue Townsend has got the knack of creating believable "diary entries" that vary between a few lines and a few pages in length, yet always ... more
Introduction
I can't help but warm to Adrian. One of fiction's hopeless cases - socially, he he partakes of all the usual teenage things (kissing, flirting, going to the odd party, sneaking a bit of illicit alcohol here and there) but there's something about his personality that isolates him. I think it's quite telling that he gets bullied by the school's "hard case", Barry Kent and his gang - Adrian comes across as someone who is always going to be different, and not quite accepted - but then again he believes himself to be an "undiscovered intellectual" so in a way, he carries on regardless, thinking that he is more sophisticated and educationally superior to Barry. Yet in some ways, Adrian is from a very average, working-class world and despite his lofty ambitions he is overwhelmingly concerned with the body worries and popularity worries that any teenager might have.
The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole is about the same age as me - published in 1984, the short novel follows on from Sue Townsend's The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4, and covers his life between April 1982 and June 1983, ending just before he takes his O Levels. Although written in diary format, Sue Townsend has got the knack of creating believable "diary entries" that vary between a few lines and a few pages in length, yet always manage to further the story. It's quite hard to narrow down what age group this would appeal to - it might appear to be a book for teenagers, but it's one of those stories you can read at thirteen and still enjoy at twenty-three.
Setting and Background
Adrian lives with his mother and father somewhere around Leicester (geographical places are rarely mentioned but I have never thought of this as a weakness - since first reading the book, I have attended university in the city but when reading it as a teenager, I never felt as though I couldn't relate to Adrian's life and world because Townsend's novel is so character-orientated, you could almost imagine the novel playing out in your own house), helping a pensioner named Bert Baxter via his participation in a "help the community" extra-curricular venture organised by his school, and desperately trying to go "all the way" with Pandora Braithwaite. Will he do it? Will he get those fantastic O Level grades he is convinced he's capable of? And what will he do when he finds out about the consequences of the affairs his parents had the previous year when temporarily separated?
My Thoughts
Something that only struck me about Adrian when I sat down to write this is how "perfectly matched" he is with Pandora, the love of his life. I'm not talking romantically here, but in terms of personality. Adrian - for all his pretensions and high opinion of himself - is not what you'd call intellectual, he just thinks he is. In terms of common sense and perception, the boy is clueless and that is why he works so well as the central character. The reader can see between the lines of the situation where Adrian just can't - he makes mistakes, gets things wrong and still thinks he's brighter than other people. That's what makes him so entertaining. But compare Pandora with him and she is everything he aspires to - she lives in a nicer house, goes on expensive holidays, owns a pony and is a genuinely academic student with potential that Adrian hasn't got. She's also got high, very modern aspirations for her future - one of their rows comes about when she tells him she doesn't want to marry him at eighteen, she wants a career - he thinks she means having a part-time job in a cake shop! Her ability and potential represents the qualities Adrian believes he possesses but actually doesn't have and will probably never attain.
Another skill of Townsend's that jumps out at me is her ability to create a picture of the world in 1982. She doesn't do this by purposely making her characters comment on political or social events or newsworthy stories, but by carefully weaving them into the story in order to show her characters reacting, as in this extract dated Monday 21st June:
....
He paused long enough for a rumour to travel along the rows that he was resigning, then he shouted 'Quiet!' and continued, 'Today at three minutes to nine a future King of England was born.' All the girls, apart from Pandora, (she is a Republican) said, 'Ooh! Lady Di's 'ad it!" Claire Neilson shouted: "How much did he weigh?" Mr Scruton smiled and ignored her. Pandora shouted, "How much will he cost?" and Mr Scruton suddenly developed good hearing and ordered her out of the hall.
.....
In between that, the Social Studies debate he refers to about the Falklands conflict, dancing to Duran Duran at a Hallowe'en party and a mention of a "new channel on television" called Channel Four, there is no doubt about it for the reader. This is definitely the 1980s.
Another excellent counterpoint to Adrian's view of himself as a grown-up at the grand old age of fifteen are the rules that he feels reduce him to a child. Somehow managing to be present at the birth of his baby sister Rosie, he is hustled out of the delivery room as soon as the doctor realises he is the brother of the new-born, not the father. He desperately wants to have sex with Pandora, in spite of the fact that even an agony aunt points out to him that he isn't legally old enough. I think this is one of Adrian's timeless qualities - it doesn't matter if you read it in the 1980s, as a teenager in the late 1990s (as I was) or as an adult today (as I am now), you can still somehow relate to his horrified embarrassment that his mother is pregnant, feel his anguish as he tries to take on adult responsibilities that are way beyond him (at one point his parents are briefly separated, hence one of his 1983 new year resolutions reads "I will get my mother and father back together again") and sympathise when he gets bullied at school.
It is a great compliment to Sue Townsend's skills as a writer that she can combine the incredibly funny moments (Adrian getting his hand stuck in a spaghetti jar when trying to retrieve the emergency taxi money) with the almost tragic (his father having returned to his lover of the previous year after hearing some startling news, Adrian has to go with his heavily pregnant, non-working mother - of course this was the 1980s, when working mums probably weren't the norm - to the social security office to try to get some money just to keep the house going) and produce a diary-type novel that, although short, describes the ups and downs of the life of this very ordinary young man in great detail. You would probably get most out of it by reading The Secret Diary first but that is not to say you won't understand the references in this one if you go for The Growing Pains first.
Other notes
My very battered, well-read copy of The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole was published by Mandarin in 1985 and reprinted numerous times in that format up to 1997 (I bought it for £4.99 then) but it is still available today, from Puffin for £6.99.
Advantages: Just a great book on the whole. Disadvantages: Annoys you with how much of a...spod he is!
Adrian Mole is a series of books by Sue Townsend. It started of with "The Secret Diary Of..." and the next was "The Growing Pains Of...". That is the one my opinion is on.
Adrian Mole is a boy who, in this book, is 15. He says he's an intellectual even though he's pretty thick and he is a neat freak. One of his main problems (with himself) is all the spots he's got. He is in a musch lower class than his girlfriend, Pandora, who has a massive home, ... ...Bert is a man that Adrian had to help as a project in PSE, but now they are friends. But Queenie dies from a stroke so just Bert and Sabre are left.
I really like this book, it is very interesting and a lot happens every day. But I think that selling it for £6 is a bit extreme.
It is an exiting, sad and funny (I think some of the things they had in 1982 is quite funny or interesting, like a word processor is INCREDIBLY expensive).
I would recommend ...
matt_fletcher 01.06.2001
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Adrian Mole: The Growing Pains - Sue Townsend
Advantages: Heartwarming and incredibly funny Disadvantages: Diary format maybe not for all of us
...book, ‘The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾, Townsend went on to pen a whole series of books chronicling Adrian’s hapless progress from his teenage years to adult life.
To get the full benefit from this second volume, it’s recommended that you first read the first book, in which we are introduced to Adrian. We learn about the complete social breakdown in his inept family – his father, a redundant electric storage heater salesman, and his mother, ... ...addition to this, the phobic Adrian informs us of a whole host of other social problems; Barry Kent, the local bully with a penchant for studded vests, has chosen Adrian as his number one target. Adrian permanently worries about his appearance – his unfashionable hair and clothes, his big nose, and rather amusingly the size of his ‘thing’, which he insists upon measuring regularly.
Readers of the first book will be pleased to learn that Sue Townsend’s ...
mattwood 25.04.2003
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Adrian Mole: The Growing Pains - Sue Townsend
Advantages: Carries on an excellent tradition of superb writing. Disadvantages: None.
...I'm a complete neurotic...
Adrian is now an adult. Well, in HIS mind anyway. He's actually 15. But that is quite old, really.
The book takes straight over from the Secret World of Adrian Mole 13 and 3/4, and if the airplane being glued to his nose had been disturbing you for the intervening years, then at least it gets resolved at the beginning of this one. You'll be glad to know that Barry Kent doesn't miss his chance to spread rumours about him ... ...the local malicious OAP that Adrian befriended on a good samaritan basis.
However, all of his previous emotional entanglements will pale into insignificance compared to the fan-hitting poo that is about to spatter over his personal life in this book.
Sue Townshend is as stomach-achingly hilarious as ever with her perceptions on life as a socially challenged and screwed up teenager. In this book, however, she gets to flex her creative muscles in ...
Salgirl 06.06.2001
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Adrian Mole: The Growing Pains - Sue Townsend
Advantages: very hard to put down! Disadvantages: none
Adrian Mole is a series of books by Sue Townsend. It started of with The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4 and the next was "The Growing Pains Of Adrian Mole.
Adrian Mole is 15 in this book, He says he's an intellectual even though he's a bit dim, one of his main problems is all the spots he's got. He is in a lower class than his girlfriend, Pandora, who has a massive home, loads of money, and smokes, Unlike him.
The story is his diary of ... ...Bert is a man that Adrian had to help as a project in PSE, and now they are friends. Unfortunately Queenie dies from a stroke so that leaves Bert and Sabre. I have enjoyed reading this book along with the others in the series, although the price of the books do vary from place to place.
I would definately recommend this book to people of all ages 12+ ...
uk_girl_nikki 16.08.2005
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Adrian Mole: The Growing Pains - Sue Townsend
Would you read it again?
Story
Characters
Readability
How does it compare to ...
How does it compare to ...
Quick review of Adrian Mole: The Growing Pains - Sue Townsend
i think all the adrian mole books are brilliant as a child i watched the tv program and even now when i am reading i can still hear the characters speaking, i dont think anyone could of guessed the fact that a spotty teenagers life could of been so interesting and funny.The way Adrian is desperately in love with Pandora his dad is having an affair with a woman Adrian calls stick insect, his mother is having an affair with the neighbours husband. amust for anyone who likes to laugh at other peoples misfortunes or just a good laugh. !!!!!!!! ...
cape123 21.04.2008
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Adrian Mole: The Growing Pains - Sue Townsend
Similar reviews »
Reviews which might be of interest for "Adrian Mole: The Growing Pains - Sue Townsend"
Advantages: funny, readable, difficult to put down Disadvantages: wish it could have gone longer!
He's Bridget Jones if she were younger, male, and a bit more intellectual.
The AdrianMole Diaries is a combination of SueTownsend's two hilarious AdrianMole books: 'The Secret Diary of AdrianMole Aged 13 3/4' and 'The GrowingPains of AdrianMole.' It is, of course, written from the perspective of a British schoolboy living in the Midlands (the particular village is not specified) in the early 1980s. He begins a diary on New Year's Day 1981 with several resolutions:
1. I will help the blind across the road.
2. I will hang my trousers up.
3. I will put the sleeves back on my records.
4. I will not start smoking.
5. I will stop squeezing my spots.
6. I will be kind to the dog.
7. I will help the poor and ignorant.
8. After hearing the disgusting noises from downstairs last night, I have also vowed never to drink ...
Advantages: Easy-peasy to read, makes you laugh out loud on buses and other public places! Disadvantages: Bath water goes cold if you read it in the bath, the book ends!
know how he feels hehehehehe.
At the end of the book we welcome his baby sister Rosie, we don't know who her father is, it could be Adrians father or another man Adrian calls "Rat fink Lucas" My fav bit of the book is when he accounts minute by minute the flawed school trip to the british museum, i read and re-read that bit when i feel low, it soons peps me up! He also meets an annoying american boy called Hamish Mancini who pops up every now and then in other Adrianmole books but is another one of my fav characters.
In 1984 SueTownsend wrote The growingpains of Adrianmole, Adrian is 15 going on 16 in this book, he has to deal with having a baby sister, then he learns he has a baby brother called Brett from his Fathers affair who is living with his mother "Stick insect" at Adrians grandmas house, he runs away from home, he befriends ...
Similar products and search queries by other users »
Adrian Sue, Adrian Mole Sue, Adrian The Sue, Adrian Growing Sue, Adrian Pains Sue, Adrian Mole The Sue, Adrian Mole Growing Sue, Adrian Mole Pains Sue, Adrian The Growing Sue, Adrian The Pains Sue, Adrian Growing Pains Sue, Adrian Mole The Growing Sue, Adrian Mole The Pains Sue, Adrian Mole Growing Pains Sue, Adrian The Growing Pains Sue
Are you the manufacturer / provider of Adrian Mole: The Growing Pains - Sue Townsend? Click here
