So here is volume 3.
As far as story goes, it's more of the same. Adrian is now 18 years old and working his first job.
It starts promisingly enough with some good laughs in the first segment. However, the format changes from the usual diary entries not far into the book and for me, the change of format doesn't quite work.
There's also an issue that, as a child, Adrian can be excused his behaviour to a large extent, but he hasn't changed or matured in the slightest in this volume, and the same childish self-centred assholery (my god, the autocorrect isn't flagging that, it's an official word apparently) comes across as just him being an asshole and all-round unpleasant tosser.
His snobbery doesn't feel funny once the format of the book changes. It just comes across as a guy with a superior attitude and he becomes more irritating than amusing. A lot of the humour in the first two books comes from how blissfully unaware he is of what is actually happening around him. That's been replaced by a disdain for everything and that just isn't as funny or appealing.
We hear monologues he apparently made on Radio 4 and see letters sent to Barry Kent before we return briefly to the diary entries.
It has its moments but I found the Mole section of the book to be disappointing.
The Mole section is followed by snippets from the POV of one Susan Lilian Townsend. Specifically, a travel diary of a trip she takes to Majorca, and a trio of essays. The Majorca section and the writing for TV essay are wryly amusing. The description of her trip to Russia feels like a what-I-did-in-the-summer type essay rather than a short story and, whilst it was an ok read with a couple of laughs, I was not enamored with it. Her final essay is quite poor.
The third section of the book is a fictitious diary of a real person- Margaret Hilda Roberts- better known by her married name of Thatcher. This is an all out snark attack on Thatcher, who definitely deserved it. There are very few figures in politics I despise more than her. but the humour didn't land for me other than a few wry grins. I don't know if that's because this section isn't particularly witty- replacing wit and cleverness with snark- or because I'm not as up to date with 1989 politics as I was back then and I'm missing a lot of references.
I should have loved a vicious takedown of Thatcher, but I didn't. It could also be that such a direct piece of political satire doesn't feel like it belongs here. I know the Mole books contain plenty of political comment, but it's folded neatly into the story in the first two volumes. This just feels like a bad fit to me.
Overall I was disappointed with this. there were a few laughs and it was never less than readable. but it's a far cry from the comic heights of the first two books. Is it diminishing returns setting in? If so, I'm not sure I want to venture as far as book 8... I will read the next one and hope it's a return to the successful format of the first books, and that she allows Adrian to actually grow as a person, rather than keeping him in this adolescent mindset his whole life.
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