If you have read Wicked by Jilly Cooper, come and talk to me

[MamaG]

I've just finished it

am SO high brow

I want to read it. What was it like?

got it ready for my holiday next week

I would like to point out that I have never read this book

you big airhead

Step away from the thread if you haven't read it

I want to DISCUSS plots etc and i will spoil everything for you

Humph. Well I've never posed wiht an 8 foot penguin, but each to their own

just got this book today - will avoid this thread for awhile!!

oh do!

come on you lot, stop pretending that you never read JC!

this is my first jc book!

I know the plot

someone has sex

someone has a nice lawn

there is a horse

oh maisy, please start from teh beginning! Riders - get it from a boot sale this weekend, don't let Wicked be your first

LMAO

Love JC (obviously interspersed with Proust and the like), but Wicked was truly awful!

I love the fact that all her books are utterly un-PC, with gypsies and sexist types running around all over the place, but Wicked takes it all to another level (and not so fun as a result).

WTF re teacher and 13 year old pupil!?!?

Still love her though and can't wait for next one to come out. Maisy, step away from Wicked and get thee to Riders for unalloyed pleasure and 'The Sexiest Man in England'.

at LAST

yes mcnoodle, exactly - horrid horrid horrid.

Too many kids having sex and gross ending.

Just one humungous great cliche from start to finish. I actually felt a bit grubby reading it (and am normally terribly proud of my JC obsession). It's a while since I read it so can't remember all details, but yes, teachers, pupils and sex not a good combo for me.

Also the weirdness of this supposed sink estate with all your obvious drug dealing, child beating types. I know tis only light hearted but - again - WTF???

And not nearly enough Rupert C-B etc for my tastes.

First JC book I couldn't finish and I was SO disappointed in it. Love love love the horsey ones but this one was just shockingly bad. Doesn't help that I'm a teacher so spent the whole book saying 'That would NEVER happen' (and all her other books are so true to life and convincing but I don't know how inaacurate they might be, iyswim). Found all the student sex stuff icky and the headmistress was the most implausible character I have ever encountered in my life of reading...

So that's what I think, MamaG

might not bother to pack it now...

fruittea I TOLD you to step away from teh thread!

I needed to moan about it

Agree completely - it was a gross book - lots of children having sex far too young (quite apart from the abuse) and not the subject for lighthearted JC-ness.

Definitely Riders or Polo, Maisy - don't start (or even bother) with this one!

I think Jilly just went completely out of her comfort zone in a bid to appeal to hip urban types. What she fails to understand is that all right thinking urbanites want to read fantasies about bluebell woods, country houses (complete with wolfhound and aga), horses, and women in floaty dresses.

The woman needs to stick to what she knows (being a right wing, floral wearing, horsey type) and leave the gritty realism to Irvine Welsh or whomever.

Another one agreed - it's completely implausible (yes, I know the others aren't plausible either, but at least they are set in vaguely glam worlds!) - too much of the kids having sex, as if any respectable Headmistress would hang around with her kids at weekends, kiss one of her pupils etc - and she is supposed to be the heroine????

Should have known it was going to be bad - Pandora was pretty dire too.

yes Pandora was crap too

And Score. It all fell apart after Polo, I think, I loved them up till then. I can still enjoy rereading those first 3.

yes I agree Feenie.