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You might know Helen Fielding as that other famous female British author that even Americans know about. Un the other other one, though, Fielding seems content to enjoy her fame in peace and quietude and doesn't hang around on the internet spouting nonsense and offensive bullshit. More power to her, I say. I hope she's living the high life on her heaping piles of well-deserved money. (Mark Darcy-- I swoon.)



In case you didn't know, OLIVIA JOULES AND THE OVERACTIVE IMAGINATION is by the same author as BRIDGET JONES. It is a lot less popular than Bridget Jones and, CAUSE CELEB, seems to have a tendency to divide its audiences. I read this for the first time as a teenager. In fact, I read it while living in the UK (I think I bought the book at a Waterstones in a mall; it was on sale for just a few quid). And since I'm doing a super fun project where I'm rereading some of the books of my youth (literary sad girl canon), this book seemed to be a solid candidate as I have vivid memories of lying awake late at night reading this book, skimming through for the bizarre and randomly placed illustrations that are interspersed throughout the book with text (all done comic book style, because of course).



The premise of this book is incredibly silly. It was written in the wake of 9/11 (2003), so Al-Qaeda is, of course, the villain. The heroine is a gorgeous/perky/cute journalist with an overactive imagination who ends up crying wolf right about when nobody believes her: that the hot guy she's super into might, in fact, be a megalomaniac who could be a terrorist in disguise. Also, there's makeup launches in Miami, a bit of a take-down of the L.A. party scene back from when boy bands were still a thing and people still wore red carpet drop-crotch pants, and there's a scuba diving accident, a trek through the Sudan, and someone accidentally snaps a pic of Bin Laden's crotch. No, it's not Cocaine o' Clock at the Nose Candy Cafe. All of this really happens in the book. I KNOW. I kind of loved it.



So here's the thing. This book does come across as a teensy bit Islamophobic in hindsight. And by a teensy bit I mean... this book would not be written today. That said, I think it is an incredibly cutting social commentary on everything from British snobbery, American ignorance, vapid celebrity culture, stereotypes in general, and that hyper-paranoid mindset so many people had in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack. You kind of get the same sort of vibe with old James Bond films and 1980s bodice-rippers: they show the attitudes and reflections of the times, for better or for worse. And what makes OLIVIA JOULES a bit more forgivable is that it really doesn't take itself at all seriously.



I think I enjoyed this more reading it as a teen but BRIDGET JONES was always this author's crown jewel to me (although I have a soft spot for CAUSE CELEB). If you're going to read it, be prepared to suspend all of your disbelief and take it with a whole bag of Morton's salt.



P.S. Debatable point, but I would argue that the biggest crime in this book was not the terrorism but the noughties fashion. I forgot about micro-minis and the low-rise jeans/whale tail combo, and ramen bowl haircuts for men. Lord help us all, how we made it out of the 2000s with any semblance of taste is nothing short of a miracle.



3 starschick-lit literary-sad-girl-canon thriller30 s Kate327 106

The end of my three-book-long failed experiment in getting into chick lit. What an utter load of tripe: the story of a slim, beautiful, plucky and slim upstart English journalist who roams the world trailing along drooling hotel bellboys and sniffing out suspicious activity that eventually leads her not only to an underwater terrorist cave, not only to Osama Bin Fucking Laden, but to Hollywood where she FOILS A BOMB PLOT DURING THE ACADEMY AWARDS CEREMONY.

If you're ok with that, go ahead and read the book; you're beyond help.This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.Show full reviewborrowed fiction post-200026 s Preeti216 188

Damn. I never had so much fun without moving an inch. Bloody brilliant.

Helen Fielding is finally back with a brand new heroine - Olivia Joules. Olivia is instantly able: down-to-earth, smart, self-made, and armed and ready to go with her own set of insecurities.

As the title suggests, Olivia's seeming downfall is her overactive imagination. She is berated by her boss and friends equally for it, especially because, as a journalist, she's been known to botch up more than a few stories along the way.

So this time, when a story about a possible major terrorist bent on the Western world's destruction waltzes in and invites her to his exclusive dinner party, she has to force herself not to get carried away.

Olivia's adventures in the name of journalism take her all over the world, armed with nothing but her wits, her quick thinking, her Survival Tin, and her Rules for Living.

The book starts dragging at some point, but when it finally gets out of that rut, it takes off again. I think that in this type of book - all about adventure and mystery - things have to happen fast, almost one of top of another, or it begins to drag. It becomes a bit unbelievable at certain points, but you can't fault it because it just goes with the storyline - and you need to have big imagination to keep up.

You might even learn a thing or two:

Rules for Living by Olivia Joules

1. Never panic. Stop, breathe, think.
2. No one is thinking about you. They're thinking about themselves, just you.
3. Never change haircut or color before an important event.
4. Nothing is either as good or as bad as it seems.
5. Do as you would be done by, e.g. thou shalt not kill.
6. It is better to buy one expensive thing that you really than several cheap ones that you only quite .
7. Hardly anything matters: if you get upset, ask yourself, "Does it really matter?"
8. The key to success lies in how you pick yourself up from failure.
9. Be honest and kind.
10. Only buy clothes that make you feel doing a small dance.
11. Trust your instincts, but not your overactive imagination.
12. When overwhelmed by disaster, check if it's really a disaster by doing the following: (a) think, "Oh, fuck it," (b) look on the bright side and, if that doesn't work, look on the funny side.
If neither of the above works then maybe it is a disaster so turn to items 1 and 4.
13. Don't expect the world to be safe, or life to be fair.
14. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

Added during her adventures:

15. Don't regret anything. Remember there wasn't anything else that could have happened, given who you were and the state of the world at that moment. The only thing you can change is the present, so learn from the past.
16. If you start regretting something and thinking, "I should have done..." always add, "but then I might have been run over by a lorry or blown up by a Japanese-manned torpedo."


Advice for Life:
"I don't feel good," she said.
"Bloody good thing too," he said. "Never feel good. The corruption of the good by the belief in their own infallible goodness is the most bloody dangerous pitfall in the human spectrum. Once you have conquered all your sins, pride is the one which will conquer you. A man starts off deciding he is a good man because he makes good decisions. Next thing, he's convinved that whatever decision he makes must be good beacuse he's a good man. Most of the wars in the world are caused by people who think they have God on their side. Always stick with people who know they are flawed and ridiculous."

Highly recommended for a fun time.fiction16 s Greg BascomAuthor 3 books10

I read this novel twice in as many weeks, the first time zipping along sniffing the eccentric aromas of lovely silliness laced with adverbs about a pert blonde British freelance journalist with the essential ingredient for a M16 spy, an overactive imagination. Skimming along, oblivious of details, not looking for clues, I enjoyed what I presumed delightful nonsense although with the haunting suspicion of missing something.

So I read it again. With foreknowledge of important characters the close-cropped blond and the hairy bellboy, I listed them, noting on which page they appeared and reappeared. Olivia Joules I googled my suspicions. Takfiri are in fact of Takfir wal Hijira. Popayan is a colonial city in Colombia, not one of the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras, yet Helen Fielding captured the ambiance of those islands as I know it. (I lived in La Ceiba for seven years.)

On second reading I paused to consider the subtext on frivolity, arrogance and despite and appreciated that Ms. Fielding didn't explain the technicalities of scuba diving. In the end I resolved to respect pert ladies with overactive imaginations and listen to their stories. They're not as farfetched as they seem. 9 s Apoorva 166 220

In my opinion, approximately the first two thirds of the book lacked a solid plot and to complete this one you need to be incredibly patient because it starts falling together towards the end only. It's a scrambled puzzle since the start and then very slowly, agonizingly slowly, we reach the part where it starts making sense.

Also the thoughts of the main character Olivia are quite far fetched at times, too far fetched. It's one thing to be over imaginative but another to be delusional. At times only though.

I d the ending little too much.
PS: It's just because I have a thing for special agents and CIA, FBI, detectives.
Though if you are on a mindless reading spree, go for it.2-stars-purgatory pi-investigation-firms police-fbi-military9 s Krista243

What I d about this book is that it was a surprise. I don't understand why some readers berated this book for not being Bridget Jones' Diary. It was written by the same author who obviously wanted to write about something else for a change. I also enjoyed it because I've always had a secret desire for espionage.

I was expecting another chick-lit story, but was pleased to find myself reading a light-hearted comedic chick-lit spy thriller. It became hard to put down to prepare meals for my family, do laundry, you know the mundane everyday tasks that prevent us from reading. I just wanted to find out "who dunnit". I'm proud to say that I only peeked at the last page for a second because toward the end of the book the story was so suspenseful.

I finished this book at 2:30 AM today (don't comment - I know I'm crazy) and I d it a lot. It was a spy thriller with a humorous and light-hearted story line with some romance, travel tips, scuba diving scenarios, spy equipment, etc. I loved the quirkiness of the heroine of the book, Olivia aka Rachel, who is a journalist with a sad story. She carries a survival kit wherever she goes as well as a hat pin (as her mother instructed) to protect herself. She's covering a story in Miami when a terrorist attack occurs and she finds herself in the middle of it. She suspects her recent aquaintance Pierre, a rich playboy who's bringing it on strong, of being involved in the attack and sets out to prove his connection to the tragedy. Her quest to get to the bottom of things takes her on an adventure with some serious perils and romantic entanglements that keep the story interesting and fast-paced.7 s Jen89

Try very hard not to compare to Bridget Jones because that one was just in a world by itself (I love laughing until I cry and it's one of VERY FEW that were successfully told on screen - Renee Zellwegger is perfect for that part!).

Okay, back to OJATOA (that title's too long to write!).
* Title: Too long but it's sort of part of the humor
* Hilariously NOT NOT NOT believable at all
* The main character stereotypes people in the most ridiculous ways - you want to just slap her on the head - I suspec this was the author's intention so when you keep that in mind, it's pretty funny to see how stupid our main character can be and how her stupidity gets her into the most interesting situations. Okay, perhaps stupid is harsh - she most certainly does have an overactive imagination though.

Overall, it's funny and cliche and goofy - a very very very easy read. 7 s Julz111 7

I was drawn to this book since I loved Bridget Jones, adore South Beach, and have been accused of having an overactive imgination, but I was sorely disappointed. I found it over-the-top and silly. It completely lacked the absurdity-meets-reality of the Bridget Jones books.

It made me wonder if Fielding is one of those authors who should stick to writing only what they know.chicklit florida7 s beatricks195 22

Just remembered I wrote this review back in 2007:

I was interested to see how a writer of such iconic books [Bridget Jones] would do outside her established area of success. Fielding obviously set out to make this book quite different: besides the occasionally omniscient third-person narration, Olivia is extremely un Bridget: focused on her career rather than finding love, and socially confident as well as secure in her looks. She's competent, skilled, and globally-minded. Instead of a romantic comedy, this is an occasionally comedic espionage thriller, starring Olivia the journalist as she uses her female intuition and social skills to investigate an al-Qaeda terrorism plot in a post-9/11 world of glitterati and hippie divers.

(as bizarre as that summary is, it gets bizarre-er. spoilers but you don't want to read this book anyway, don't worry.)

PROBLEMS:

1. The narration is terrible. Fielding really doesn't seem to grasp the inner mechanics of third-person narration — there's no build to it, no deeper insights, and the pacing is awful. In a diary, short and sometimes incoherent descriptions were germane to the format. Here they just make no sense. Sample painful description, from when our heroine is being held hostage underwater by an enemy and occasionally given air from a scuba tank to breathe: "It was crazy, but good." What?? She uses these dead words and outright telling all over the place, but her prose isn't minimalistic enough to justify it as a style choice. And then, and then, and then, and the tone doesn't change whether she's at a party or seconds from death. Relatedly, her description of action/suspense sequences are stilted and confusing. She doesn't give enough visual cues to explain wtf is going on, or make sense of her settings, and meanwhile Olivia's emotions are inaccessible and when we do know them, often seem inappropriate given the situation. Usually we're just told these thoughts, but occasionally we read her actual thoughts, which is always headdesk-worthy because when this happens, it's inconsistent: first she thought in the present tense, and suddenly she's thinking in the past. WHY?!

2. This book is pretty racist. Well, it's hard to quantify how racist the main plot is: Olivia meets a "dark" man who she immediately pegs for an Arab and a terrorist. Fielding hangs a lantern on it by having Olivia questions herself as being possibly racist, and her suspect claims that he was posing as not-an-Arab to escape that kind of stereotyping, but ... he really is a terrorist. Obviously this is ooky, particularly the "dark" descriptor that pops up several times, but given that it is a post-9/11 spy thriller, it seems somewhat of the Bond tradition where of course the enemy is going to be a dirty commie, or what have you. It makes for unsettling reading, however, and never gets better. Meanwhile, that's not the only kind of racism going on here: in a two-page sequence set in the Mexico City airport, Fielding packs in so many ridiculous stereotypes about Mexicans and Central Americans that in retrospect I'm not even sure why I kept reading. Mexican men wear cowboy boots! Mexicans are laid-back to the point where their airplanes regularly get lost because LOL QUE PASA? Mexicans don't care if there are problems, because Mexicans solve all problems with tequila! Similar hijinks ensue in Egypt and the Sudan, but I happened to pick up on this in particular because I have many ties to Mexican culture and have actually spent a lot of time in the real Mexico City airport, which is how I know for certain that this writing isn't just offensive, it's also...

3. BADLY RESEARCHED & IMPLAUSIBLE AS FUCK. There are so many incidental factual errors I caught in this book that I can only imagine how intensely wrong the last third of the book, which is a wildly unbelievable crash course with the MI6 and al-Qaeda, must be. Besides making MEX sound a podunk bus stop (hint: it's the airport for the second largest city in the world, fuck no it doesn't have cowhide chairs), she even mentions Homeland Security's terror alert levels and yet allows Olivia to fly out of Miami the same day as a terrorist attack there, and continue to globe-trot via planes, and two different passports, despite a series of terrorist attacks that would, in the real world, ground air traffic for who knows how long. Apparently neither MI6 nor the CIA have any investment in remaining covert, as MI6 goes around informing all of Olivia's friends and employers that she's with them, and a CIA agent (who wields a lot of power within the agency, is a computer genius, and an undercover master of disguise) identifies himself as CIA onstage at the fucking Oscars in order to make an announcement anyone could have made. Adrien Brody's name is now Adrian, twice. And insult of insults: "In southern California alone we have major shipping ports in the Bay Area, Ventura, Los Angeles, and San Diego."

OH NO YOU DI-IN'T.

By the way, Olivia Joules has crazy hunches a lot, and they are (almost) ALWAYS RIGHT. Her overactive imagination is actually a keen intuition that, paired with social skills, is the reason why there should be moar female spies!! Oh the gloriously girly unorthodoxy!

4. Gender and sex fail. The premise, mentioned just above, is problematic, although I can see what I think Fielding intended: Olivia's instincts were written off as imagination because she was dismissed as a silly girl, when really it is her feminine intuition that gives her strength. So, okay, she's Buffy the Vampire Slayer of spies. And she is rewarded, of course, with a hot spy boyfriend (the aforementioned important CIA wunderkind). I approved briefly, because who loves hot spysex and bossy men with guns? Oooh, me, me! Excellent, until he turns out to be such a condescending douchebag, who addresses her exclusively as "baby" once the hot spy bickering is out of the way, that I was ready to believe he was a double-crossing al-Qaeda agent, just because I hated him and couldn't believe that this jerk was supposed to be the happy ending.2004-2008-aka-early-twenties6 s Siobhan Ward1,271 10

So I think I bought this because I remembered enjoying Bridget Jones' Diary , but upon checking my review, I didn't that book much either.

Ok, here we go. My review of what might possibly be the stupidest book I've ever read. Where do we start?

1. Olivia - If you thought Bridget Jones was an unflattering, misogynistic portrayal of women, Olivia will blow you out of the water. SO MUCH TIME devoted to her being good looking, worrying about her figure etc. But the girl is dumber than a bag of rocks. Oh my god. Did you know that actions have consequences?? Olivia doesn't! Also, somehow, despite being a total idiot and not understanding anything in the world, Olivia is an accomplished journalist who speaks multiple languages...
2. Racism, racism, racism - This book was written in 2003, and has aged badly, but there are things that would have been inappropriate, even back then. do we really need to make the middle eastern man a member of al-Quaeda? Originally, when Olivia suspected that he was a terrorist, she scolded herself and said that she was being racist. I thought this might be an ok sign, since we were acknowledging that assuming Muslim men are terrorists is bad, but nope, turns out he was a terrorist the whole time. Even the one other mentioned POC character is also a terrorist. Nice job. . Also, people can speak French and also Arabic?
3. The MI6 plot. All of it. If you just call up the FBI/M16/CIA and tell them you think someone is a terrorist, they're not going to bring you into their ranks. Sorry. Even if they wanted to, as soon as you opened your mouth to reveal you were as stupid as Olivia, you would be asked to leave. This plot line was SO STUPID I couldn't even believe it got published

Finally, there were just too many things that made 0 sense. For an author that talked about 9/11 so much, apparently Fielding never made it onto at any point, because no way could you bring a RAZOR BLADE and PEPPER SPRAY in your carryon after 2001.

I'm just mad that this book was so bad.5 s Valissa1,330 20

Rules for Living by Olivia Joules
1. Never panic. Stop, breathe, think.
2. No one is thinking about you. They're thinking about themselves, just you.
3. Never change haircut or color before an important event.
4. Nothing is either as bad or good as it seems.
5. Do as you would be done by, e.g. thou shalt not kill.
6. It is better to buy one expensive thing that you really than several cheap ones that you only quite .
7. Hardly anything matters: if you get upset, ask yourself, "Does it really matter?"
8. The key to success lies in how you pick yourself up from failure.
9. Be honest and kind.
10. Only buy clothes that make you feel doing a small dance.
11. Trust your instincts, not your overactive imagination.
12. When overwhelmed by disaster, check if it's really a disaster by doing the following: (a) think, "Oh, fuck it," (b) look on the bright side, and if that doesn't work, look on the funny side. If neither of the above works then maybe it is a disaster so turn to items 1 and 4.
13. Don't expect the world to be safe or life to be fair.4 s Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer1,909 1,486

Character Olivia Joules is an aspiring features journalist who finds herself caught up in a Al-Queda style terrorist plot including the blowing up of a liner, a (foiled) plot to attack world bridges and (at the end) the booby trapping of the Oscars. Initially she seems to be imagining things – she is convinced that one of the characters is Osama Bin Laden – but in fact he does turn out to be a notorious terrorist.

Harmless fun but very lightweight and clearly written to be filmed – and (despite what author) thinks the character is effectively Bridget Jones – her thinness and glamorous lifestyle notwithstanding – author seems to think that simply changing name/appearance/circumstances of a character but then using exactly the same writing style and characterisations distinguishes Olivia from Bridget.20044 s Lilly Wood118 16

Soooooo I will admit that this started a little slow for me, but thankfully I'm curious and wanted to know the outcome! I don't want to ruin anything but I will say it was worth the read and I loved it!4 s NicoleAuthor 5 books47

I remember reading a snarky review of this when it first came out, and I see that the average rating here at Goodreads isn’t all that high. Maybe those who dis it are comparing it unfavourably with Bridget Jones’s Diary, which I know is very popular. I still haven’t read Bridget, and I thought I would start with Olivia and judge it on its own merits, because a friend highly recommended Olivia to me. I d it. It’s a fun, entertaining read. Olivia is a fun character-—part plucky reporter, part budding spy, part melodramatic schoolgirl. I loved her little survival kit.
A quibble: I thought Scott sounded almost Austin Powers when he started saying “baby” in almost every sentence; and Scott did not strike me as an Austin Powers type.
I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys the TV shows Alias and Chuck. Fans of Elizabeth Peter’s Amelia Peabody might also give it a try (Amelia would approve of Olivia’s clever use of a hatpin).contemp-pop-fiction espionage3 s Natalie56 1 follower

Wow - that was AWESOME!
I finally got a book with an interesting female main character who is just enough ditzy and just enough smart to be entertaining.
There's everything in that plot - hot guys, mysterious strangers, fashion, journalism, travel, adventure, just enough romance, just enough of a scare, underwater world, beaches, terrorists. How did Helen Fielding ever manager to mix all of that together and not be cheesy?
I kept guessing and missing how the plot will evolve throughout entire book (isn't it the best?)

Loved it!3 s Empress of Bookingham153 20

“... A man who never makes a mistake never makes anything.”

Olivia Joules And The Overactive Imagination, Helen Fielding

~~~

I was looking for an easy to digest book to get me out of my slumpish mood and so I picked this book. Did I have high expectations? No. Given I've read The Bridget Jones Diary which I enjoyed but not as much as I had expected from other people's talk of the book.

So did this book have an 'I want to read more' effect? Yes, so much so that I was shocked.

Humurous, highly able heroine character with a crazy imagination but with a sense of morality and deepness can do that to you.

I agree that some part of the story at the start was a bit comme si comme ça but I became invested in Joules and her desire to be more than she already was to put the book down. And the fact that

The story was fast to read and enjoyed its short chapters.

I also enjoyed the commentary on life, Hollywood, a bit of terrorism...
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