i just finished reading a (god help me) Jilly Cooper book...it was utter crapola

[purplemonkeydishwasher]

and yet i continued to read it. page after page. chapter after agonizing chapter. I read it all. the whole time thinking: "where the hell is this stupid meandering story going?" and in the end i wasn't disappointed....it ended as poorly as it began. (it was called Wicked! BTW. her exclamation point, not mine)

took me forever too, and I'm a fast reader. that's a week i'll never get back.

Thanks for the warning, I was going to buy it.

mayeb it's just her style i do't like. i've never read any of her stuff before.

serves

you

right

whoa! someone bought it for me. wasn't my choice!! (that's my story and I'm sticking to it!)

I looked forward to the new Jilly Cooper coming out for months, collected my copy, sat back on sofa in anticipation ready for a nice day's reading....utter crap. Not worth the paper it is written on. The ending was a new low point in the utter abysmalness of the book IMO.

Sad because I grew up with all the other Jilly Cooper books, and silly though they might be, they were always a good "comfort read"

It wasn't good. I quite liked the horsey ones (Riders/Rivals) for a bit of light reading, lots of romping and punning. But I though Wicked! was just trying too hard.

Riders was great stuff!

i nearly bought one once but the snobby man in the poncy book shop, when i asked for a plastic bag, turned the book over in disgust and enquired "for this?",

i was so i said in that case i didnt want the book.
perhaps he did me a favour

Mmnn, snobby man obviously doesn't want to sell the book, why stock it?

Agree, Wicked! () is totally rubbish, and utterly unbelievable, even more so than the others. Riders and Polo my faves, closely followed by Rivals.

Oh, and you can always get them in charity shops!

lol...I have read a few of her novels....always thought they were quite funny (I know they are probably not actually meant to be funny, lol)...it's the sort of novel I would go for if I need easy reading....

I'm a huge JC fan, I think Rivals and Riders and Polo are wonderful trashy escapism and I am in love with Rupert Campbell Black, obviously.

I didn't enjoy Wicked as much as other JC and I think the stuff at the end was completely unnecessary and quite vile, I really don't know why she did it and why her editor didn't say NO to that stuff.

Why did you finish it, I just stop reading if I think something's crap.

Oh I liked Pandora too, I thought she was back on form with that after the pile of shite that was the man who made husbands jealous.

Wicked was not one of her best the early horse ones were great fun

I was disappointed with Wicked! too - I LOVED her horsey ones, but this one didn't come close.

I have read and enjoyed some of her books. Wicked was crap!

oh funny, I just picked it up in the supermarket and then put it back as I'd heard it was crap. a shame, as I love JC. Will have to reread my old faves - especially Rivals and Prudence.

Yup, I'm another big fan of JC's for a light read, but Wicked was a complete and utter load of shite. I imagine you've been put off for life, but if you get a chance, have a read of Riders and Rivals, and see what the Jilly magic is all about.

Is Wicked the one where she bumps off Rannaldini, or the school one? Both were utter shite but the school one I managed about the first 2 chapters and gave up. Her later books are so awful, it's like it's a different author.

wicked is shit - dwasher - the earlier ones are better if you like that kind of thing.

so are the characters the same in all of them?

and does she always have such a hang-p about breasfeeding?

WWW - i finished it because i thought that it couldn't be crap right to the end. I thought there must be a redeeming quality at SOME point. obviously i was wrong.

Riders, Polo, Rivals - all brilliant.
Recent ones, not so good

oh dear. My mum has lent me that book. I'll still read it, if only to see why it's so crap.

Some of the characters appear in a number of different books. Rupert is in all of them, but not centre stage so much in the later ones.

I think Rannaldini gets bumped off in Score, doesn't he? That was really when Jilly jumped the shark, messing with the legend that Tab and Isa would end up together.

Jilly's totally politically incorrect about breastfeeding. In Rivals all the men complain about Dierdre Kilpatrick (also known as Kill-programme - in my defence, I read the book again recently!) whipping out saggy boobs to bf her baby, but are fine when Janey whips out her tanned and gorgeous ones to do likewise - her baby in that of course is Amber Lloyd-Foxe!