Okay, now I have your attention with a blog title that even by my standards is a little left field I should almost certainly put out a disclaimer. Let me state for the record that I have never read any of the Bridget Jones books, and have only a vague recollection of the first movie. I had a girlfriend who wanted to see it and I wanted to see her knickers no matter if they were big comfy pants or a lacey thong.

I will say this though a Bridget Jones Werewolf movie would be a far better date movie, particularly if Hugh Grant got ripped apart by a rabid Bridget in he middle of the third act. Renée Zellweger would make for a cute werewolf I am sure, and she could pull it off, that woman has range…

Oddly enough, Hellen Feilding’s the original novel was based, loosely, on Pride and Prejudiced, which I think proved my point as while movie versions of Pride and Prejudiced also make for popular date movies, Pride and Prejudiced with Zombies is easily the best of these IMO. All the romance of the Jane Austin original, with sword fights and zombie beheading. So just saying Bridget Jones Goes Rabid is a movie idea with legs…

Unfortunately, I suspect that movie will never get made, but on the off chance that it does, Warner Brothers can contact me here with the bankers draft for my ideating. When they do I will of course be morally obligated to admit my idea was inspired by another authors novel, once the money is in the bank… So until then I’ll not tell anyone, you included dear reader which novel inspired me to think Bridget Jones Goes Rabid was a great idea for a movie… So lets just move on and put this whole Renée Zellweger goes furry on the back burner for now… Instead I’ll review some random book that is in no way connected to the opening section of this blog post…

I should also point out I don’t read a lot of chick-lit. I suspect one of the reasons I don’t read much Chick-lit is generally it lacks shapeshifters. Having said that I am sure someone will want to point out a long list of werewolf erotic romances that are available… The kind of books aimed at a female readership that have a man on the cover with his shirt off.

‘He was the alpha of his pack but could she tame his wild heart..?’

There is nothing wrong with that kind of book, they tend to be set in mid-west America and the werewolves all drive pickups. Except for the Lone-wolf who will have a Harley… They are a popular subgenre of urban fantasy, but like the majority of Urban Fantasy its all set in the US and its appeal to me which is somewhat limited to start with, falls away entirely when we start talking about ‘good old wolf boys’ down on the farm. Also, and this has to be said, the were’s in American books of this type are all werewolves, or on the odd occasion werebears.

The best book I read last year involved a shape shifter, that was Hunting the Egret by Nimue Brown and the shapeshifter in question was a were-otter. You would not get a were-otter in the average shape shifter chick-lit I mentioned above.

That would be as likely a book having a were-guineapig in it or a were-hedgehog for that matter. Or a social worker, blundering around the urban decay of a British council estates, while having Bridget Jones style relationship issues which are amplified by being a werefox in a society were the others are ‘shifters’, force to live on the fringe of society. Now I find a book like that far more interesting than Chick lit ‘good old boy’ werewolves… But where can you find a book like that?

A review of Less Than Human by Steven C Davis

Thirty-something Natalayiana has a problem, actually she had a lot of problems. Her best friend doesn’t like her fiancée, though in fairness Nat isn’t massively fond of him either. He is however the safe steady option who understands Nat’s body re-morphic issues .

Her best friend who happens to be heavily pregnant, is also in lust with Nat, but like Nat’s book group, work colleagues and most everyone else Nat interacts with, she doesn’t trust ‘shifters’. This is a tad problematic for Nat because she could probably do with someone other than ‘safe steady’ Gerald to whom she could talk about her issues. Specifically that she is on of the ‘shifters’ he best friend doesn’t trust…

Being a Werefox and having a dull fiancée is not Nat’s only issue either. There is her bosses obsession with obtaining funding for the charity she works for, who’s happy to exploit his workers to get such funding. The rich father of her ex uni boyfriend who has an odd obsession with her. Her ex boyfriend himself who was a creep back then and seems just as creepy now. Her clients who need her help but mostly seem to resent her. Mal, the American who wanted to bring Homes’s4 Were’s to the UK, and organisation that seeks to ‘manage’ the were problem, in the ways not dissimilar to how some evangelical churches try to ‘manage’ homosexuality.

Then there is the mysterious Robert who makes her lament having a fiancée.

Nat just wants to be safe, she just wants to be left alone to get on with living a quite helpful life trying to do good , except of course being safe and being left alone is the last thing she actually wants…

So there you go, Bridget Jones the werewolf years…

Except, it not. Underneath that fluffy fun idea, which I suspect is not how the author would chose to describe his novel, there is something poignant about living on the edge of society and having to hide your true nature because society neither understand it nor is libel to accept it. Its analogous to the experience of gay people in the 80’s and trying hard hide it from everyone. The general fear and distrust of ‘shifters’ is equally analogous to society’s reaction to the AID’s virus.

Natalayiana is a social worker, doing her bit to right societies ills, she volunteers on her weekends with the national trust, she’s in a book group, she’s agreed to be her single friends Birthing partner. She is a good person doing her best to make society better for everyone… A society that would reject her in a moment if it knew she got really really bad PMT around the full-moon… Because all the good works in the world will not change her from being the ‘other’ that ‘normal’ people are constantly encouraged to distrust by the status quo.

Nat’s experience as a ‘shifter’ is also Analogous to the experience of the trans community, certainly from some quarters of the media and the public at large. So this is very much not Bridget Jones the werewolf years, this is not just a book about thirty-something handwringing and emotional frustrations. Also, it has to be said that while I have never read Bridget Jones, I suspect Bridget Jones novels are much less visceral in nature.

This is a very visceral novel, with a lot of visceral sexuality within it, and indeed a lot of equally visceral sex. But there is, and should be, something very primal about shapeshifters. That primal visceral sexuality of her nature is what Natalayiana seeks most to deny in order to fit in. Much of this novel is about the futility of the struggle to deny, even to yourself, who you truly are. You can suppress your nature, bottle it up, hide it beneath layers of banality and fitting in, but unless you can be yourself, can embrace you true nature, how can you ever be happy?

So, there are layer to this novel, layers that make it something very defiantly not Bridget Jones Goes Rabid (the werewolf years). But then if that had been all it was I would not have enjoyed it and would not be writing this review. It is fun, interesting and thought provoking. It is visceral both sexually and in terms of its reflection of society.

It was also a joyously diverting novel to read on every level, just plain fun, but equally thought provoking at the same time.