Screenshot_2019-07-13 The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole - W F Howes LtdFrom Goodreads: “Sunday July 18th My father announced at breakfast that he is going to have a vasectomy. I pushed my sausages away untouched.

In this second instalment of teenager Adrian Mole’s diaries, the Mole family is in crisis and the country is beating the drum of war. While his parents have reconciled after both embarked on disastrous affairs, Adrian is shocked to learn of his mother’s pregnancy.

And even though at the mercy of his rampant hormones and the fickle whims of the divine Pandora, a victim of a broken home and his own tortured (though unrecognised) genius, Adrian continues valiantly to chronicle the pains and pleasures of a misspent adolescence.”

My Review

This was a laugh out loud audiobook for me! I listened to The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4 a while ago and thought it was brilliant! When I saw that the library app had the next book in the series as an audiobook I downloaded it in a flash!

It was great fun to get back into Adrian’s world of teenage angst, poetry, intellectualism, his girlfriend Pandora and the continuing problems with his parents marriage. This may sound like the makings of a depressing read but it really isn’t, as Sue Townsend knows how to get inside the brain of a teenage boy in 1980s Britain and make it really funny.

Sometimes I felt really sorry for Adrian as his home life fell apart more and more, but then he’d write something daft in his diary and I’d be smiling again at his silly teenage ideas.

One of the aspects that I loved about this book was Adrian’s confidence in being an intellectual and of course a poet, as only a teenager can. I actually quite liked some of his very simple poems, especially his one addressed to Mrs Thatcher, Prime Minister at the time. I loved how this book really was a great social commentary of the 1980s, something I missed as a teenager at the time, but of course know all about now.

Nicholas Barnes was a superb narrator portraying Adrian perfectly, really making me feel like a fly on the wall as I was listening to the diary entries.

As you can probably tell I loved this audiobook and can’t wait to get my hands on the next audiobook in the series, if I can find it in the library.