Continuing on with my obsession on the Adrian Mole series, I just finished Adrian Mole: The Lost Years by Sue Townsend. I will say that this is the first one I found a bit wanting...

This one covers the years from Christmas 1984 through April 1992. He's now in his 20's, and he's totally convinced he's a loser who will never experience the love of a woman again (after being dumped by Pandora). He can't master the art of driving a car, he's madly obsessed and in love with his therapist, and he has a dead-end job working for the government managing newt tracking and habitat. His mother has dumped his father and is now living with (and married to) someone about half her age, and he's moved out to live in a room with Pandora, her "husband", and a third member of the odd trio. That soon comes to an end when he meets and eventually falls in love with a news agent girl by the name of Bianca. That's a mad passionate affair until she runs off with his mother's young new husband. And then there's Jo Jo...

Told in diary fashion like the other books, it still is a lot of fun to peer into his life from his perspective (as warped as it is). But this installment seemed to drag out too much. His efforts to finally finish his book were somewhat repetitive after awhile, and there's just far too much whining about how bad he has it. This one didn't seem to have the "magic" of the earlier ones. Maybe it's because he's growing up and dealing with problems that are too close to home on occasion. I don't regret spending the time reading it, nor is it enough to put me off of the series. But I'm holding out hope that this was an aberration.

I thought this book was a rip off as it contains The True Confessions of Adrian Mole which is already published as a separate book. P. Freeman

The wry youth who sometimes signs his diary "Adrian Albert Mole, Unpublished novelist and pedestrian" is back. Those who laughed with this pubescent British philosopher in the 80s will be delighted; those who are meeting him for the first time will find that chuckles abound.

At 16 Adrian is still the miserable victim of unrequited love, at odds with his parents, and celebrating Christmas night with "a desultory game of cards."

Four years later, although still living at home, he has found employment in his local library, and companionship with a girl both bovine and boring. After his manuscripts are rejected by every literary agent and publisher on either side of the Thames, Adrian finds shelter at Oxford and a job studying newts and badgers.

In his spare time Adrian has penned a novel that he believes should be adapted for the stage. However, no one is waiting in line to bring life to his 700 page epic with 144 characters and six live deer.

A new love and a writer's workshop on a Greek island eventually brighten Adrian's life. Reading his eccentrically comic adventures brightened mine.

- Gail Cooke

Adrian Mole is a misfit, a loser, under-employed when he works at all, fancies himself a great novelist, and is working on a totally inane master-piece which contains no vowels. His family is wildly dysfunctional, his relationships are disastrous, his therapist gives up, his luck is forever running out. And, when it seems that things couldn't possibly get any worse, well, you guessed it.

Author Sue Townsend is a brilliant comedic writer, but in this work, the comedy is darkly satirical. The hero (or anti-hero) Mole was first introduced in her earlier work, The Secret Diaries, when he was not quite fourteen. Hilarious it was, then, to see him percieve the inconsistencies of the adult world without ever really understanding what was happening. Now that he is older, the humor is darker, with a biting edge. For this young man is now moving into his mid-twenties, without apparently growing or learning anything of value. So, is there hope for poor Mole? Will he ever grow up? Will he ever get a girlfriend? You will just have to read the book and see.

While other reviewers expressed disappointment in the book, I enjoyed it immensely. It is different from the Secret Diaries with a different type of humor. Take it on its own terms and you will laugh yourself silly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

When I read the first book: "The Secret Diaries of Adrian Mole" I was hooked and couldn't wait to read the sequel. The poor lad -- you couldn't help but take a liking to him and really hope that he becomes the intellectual he aspires to be or that he moves on to bigger and better things in life. "The Lost Years", while still quite humourous, makes you feel a little frustrated with Adrian--how he is so blind to the things that go on around him. He is SO wrapped up in himself and writing his novel that he ceases to grow -- socially, personally and in his career. Nonetheless, the book is an easy read and a must if you are a follower of the Mole. The end gives us Mole-lites hope in a new beginning for him in the next book: The Cappucino Years, which I am looking forward to reading.