Jilly cooper for 17 year old?

[Christinglechristmas]

Would you buy jilly cooper for a serious heavy weights reader to give her some fun or too raunchy??

This makes me a little bit sad that there is no longer a black market trade in Jilly Cooper novels at schools!
I definitely read Riders too young (12!) but really enjoyed the first 3 novels and having re-read now I’m older I can appreciate the wider themes and social commentary, rather than just ponies and bonking 🤣

We read riders at 11/12 ish and Lace etc, copies were passed around like the boys passed around their Dad's copies of Razzle. We also read heavyweights but the choice of book for free reading in English was Richard Laymon, King or Herbert.

My parents didn't censor books or tv - we were allowed to watch Threads at around the same age

@vincettenoir good point that stuff actually disgusts her which may ruin her pleasure of it.

@TheRutshireWI it's not a case I'd censoring it, she's not picked it up here at home or at library reading it and in wondering whether to stop her reading it.

It's a question of whether is appropriate for "ME" to buy it for her

We were passing round the Harold Robbins books at school too! Don't think it was worse than the News of the World or the problem pages of the Women's magazines at the time.

If you're thinking Jilly Cooper and Jackie Collins, you must throw in some Shirley Conran Lace too!

I think the raunchiness may be watered down by (in a 17yr olds' eyes) the cheese factor. It'll seem very dated but a fun read.

I love it when readers can flip between heavy duty, thick tomes of 'the classics', and easy, page turning yarns. And surely by now, the Jilly Coopers can be reviewed as a classic for the way they tapped into the female mind, paving the way for the housewives to think of their own wants. It's a sociological classic

I think I'd read all of the named ones by then.. Octavia, Harriet etc so yes I would to any of hers
17 isn't a tween!

It’s far less raunchy and much jollier than the angst-ridden romantasy stuff that’s really popular with teenagers now.

A previous poster mentioned Updike who'd probably count as reasonably heavyweight but is pretty filthy in places.

Rivals is in my top 5 favourite books of all time! I read Jilly from when I was 13 or 14 and often return to her. And that is from someone who was obsessed with Thomas Hardy at the same age.

Well no one seems to think I'm odd for buying it for her which is the thing I was concerned about ( little).

Jolly jilly here we come and Jackie and Jeff Archer... 8os bundle for Xmas.

Cheer her up through dark winter months.

I was an avid reader and also loved those books and flowers in the attic etc. But getting them myself from the library is one thing to mum buying it for me

I feel like modern 17 year olds won’t bat an eyelid at the sec but would be horrified by the classism!

What do they pass round at school these days? It was all Lace and Flowers in the Attic with us. (Don't think Jilly had published Rivals and Riders till a couple of years later.)

Absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE Tom Wolfe (and have done as a teen).

"Bonfire of the Vanities" is genius is my view.

Also loved Tom Wolfe's "Man in Full" and as a teen I was recommended "I am Charlotte Simmons" which is also meant to be great.

I loved Hollywood Wives as a teen as well 😂

Just to add.. I'm Russian so War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment, Brothers Karamazov, Evgeny Onegin etc were compulsory reads in my family growing up 😄 loved the classics, but I still liked the trashy writers as well.

On reflection she really doesn't like age gap relationships so I'm thinking she would be repulsed by that and probably wouldn't enjoy it

The point of Jilly Cooper is that the people are all repulsive. Only the horses and dogs have noble characters.

Reflects my experience of the horse world 😂

Yeah I read JC and Jackie Collins at 15/16. It'll give her a giggle.

Jilly Cooper is lightweight. If she is in anyway academic, I’d be looking at some really good classics not a raunchy bed hopping self absorbed book set in the 80s

Jilly Cooper is not lightweight. Saying so is literary snobbery IMO, I agree with @DieDreiHexen

Isn’t reading Jilly Cooper a rite of passage in your teens…?! The Thorn Birds was another one we all devoured, which was seen as romantic then, but would be views a differently now (older man etc).

On tv there were the mini series, The Thorn Birds, Lace, and there was something set around an airfield, but I can’t recall what it was called. Was a pilot called Mac? (May have got that wrong).

If having standards to differentiate literature from mass market paperbacks that are nothing more than a fictional gossip rag is literary snobbery then I think it’s a good thing.

I wouldn't, they are trash.
It's not the raunchy, it's the shitty relationships I wouldn't be happy with.
More modern chick-lit maybe if you are wanting just to give her some shallow hiday type reading?
Marian keyes, Jill Mansell, that kind of thing.
I recently really enjoyed Beth o'learys book. The flat share.

I completely disagree but have a meeting to go to so happy to agree to disagree.