'Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy' fails to impress

But readers appear to be voting with their purses, snapping up a massive 48,500 copies of Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy in only the first week of British sales. Official figures are not yet available in Australia but booksellers are reporting strong sales.

Fairfax Media's Michelle Griffin, whose review will be published later this month, was one of those unconvinced by Jones' latest outing, in which she is cast as a single mother following the controversial death of Mark Darcy (played by Colin Firth in the first hit movie).

“As a wealthy and emotionally stunted widow, she is more Desperate Housewives of Notting Hill caricature than our funny bestie speaking truth to her diary,” Griffin writes. “Even more disappointing, Mad About the Boy is not that funny. Jokes about drunken mates and desperate texts feel rehashed from the earlier books. Even dirty Daniel (you know, the Hugh Grant character) is reduced to shrieking 'mummy panties' every second paragraph.”

Janet Maslin, writing in The New York Times, called it a “sad, untethered book” and said that while Bridget Jones was not dead yet she “might as well be”.

Like many other reviewers, Jen Chaney in The Washington Post took issue with the decision to kill off Darcy and turn Jones into a 51-year-old “cougar” grappling with a much younger man and the complexities of social media.

“[Fielding] has taken the easy way out in terms of plot,” she writes. “Instead of placing Bridget in an entirely new situation that might have afforded her added depth, the author has turned her into a singleton again.

“As a result we have a much-hyped novel that, sadly, is more retro that relevant.”

But none of this appears to have swayed fans of the original novel, which began life in 1995 as a column in The Independent before being turned into two best-selling books, which also became films.

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy was named one of the fastest-selling books of the year in Britain by The Bookseller, beating Wilbur Smith to the top of the British charts.

Mainstream bookseller Dymocks is very happy with sales just six days in.

“It's doing brilliantly for us,” Dymocks buying manager Sophie Higgins said. “People love Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy and really think of Renee Zellweger and Colin Firth – it's fused in their minds.

“The new developments in her life were great publicity and marketing.”

Emily Harms, from Melbourne's Reading booksellers, said the book had so far exceeded expectations considering it had only been on sale for six days.

“It's certainly going better than I thought,” she said. “Everyone loves a bit of Bridget Jones.”

However, Barbara Horgan, of Shearer's on Norton in the Sydney suburb of Leichhardt, said those who enjoyed the first books were buying the latest, “but not in huge numbers”.

The marketing was partly to blame, she said.

“I was a bit disappointed in the cover,” she said. “They have tried to make her look like she is in her twenties.”