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??

I think Tom Wolfe would be appreciated by a teenager who usually likes classics, as his writing is brilliant. Bonfire of the Vanities would be my choice for an intelligent teen.

When I was 17, I was happy to read some trash as a change from all the academic stuff.

I think it's fine and not that raunchy. She'll read what she likes at 17 without you having any say anyway.

Unless she had expressed a preference no I wouldn’t. I would get some thing by Fiona Walker or similar rather than a book which is very dated.

Yes, me too! I just wouldn't enjoy JC, and have never felt any desire to read them.

If your girl is a bit of a blue stocking there are plenty of writers she would enjoy. At that age I loved Colette, the Claudine books (pretty racy) especially, Antonia White, Rosamund Lehmann

Give her Lace and Valley of the Dolls and Peyton Place as well.

These blockbusters, written by and largely for women are an excellent snapshot of what women were looking for in terms of escapism at the time. And they're still really great reads imo.

If you want to go all the way, Forever Amber was scaring the horses back in the 40s.

It sounds like you're planning on giving her the books that you enjoyed as a teenager and think that teenage girl should enjoy rather than giving her books that are actually her taste.

If she likes what you see as heavyweight books but you want to give her some lighter reads then why not choose authors like Sarah Waters, Kate Atkinson or Emma Donoghue? They write gripping page turners which are also really well written and give the reader a lot to think about.

I was too, but I tended to pick those books up for 50p at jumble sales or second hand book shops. I think a gift should be a better grade of book especially since the OP described the 17yo as a heavy weight reader.