Sometimes, you want to simply take your brain out of your head and set it lovingly down in a nearby jar filled with nurturing fluid, and just... rest.

The key however, is then not reading something that will scorch the insides of your head far too much for your brain to feel welcomed back.

Ding Dong (I have already forgotten the main character's name) is not Bridget Jones. The book promo wants to be rilly rilly clear about how not Bridget Jones she is, while she rings all the changes on Bridget Jones' Greatest Hits, mostly involving underwear, falling over and obsessing about which men are suitable. All at once, for preference.

The thing about Bridget Jones, however, is that you either find her likable or at the very least, redeemable. Ding Dong is neither. She is also not a Mean Girl, per se, because part of being a Mean Girl is being cleverly cutting. But if all you do is direct mean comments at your so-called close friends, that's just plain mean. For instance, one of her good friends shows up to lunch with a busted nose, having "walked into a door", and Ding Dong's reaction is to put a piece of beetroot on her own nose and ask, "Who am I, then? Eh?"

That is something you are taught not to do when you are seven. Ding Dong, however, skipped that lesson. She is like that the whole entire book.

I was supposed to care that Ding Dong's dad died, because that is sad, but honestly, she cared less than I did, so it felt like just one more unfair ask among many. I did not, ultimately, care about either. There are a lot of things that happen in the book where you hope that this, yes this will be the thing that gets Ding Dong to change her ways. Finally!

No dice. She learns nothing. She fails to grow. She continues to be horrible.

My poor brain, still paddling softly about in its jar somewhere, deserves a better bath, and now I am off to find one.