Rivals - rich British people being nasty and hilarious

[dangermousie]

Just finished this door-stopper of a book and so much fun! I really must read more Jilly Cooper - no doubt it's very trashy but the amount of fun I had was insane. In short:

1. STD tests for everyone! I have never seen that much sleeping around in a single novel before. And not just for AIDS as some of them did, but for every STD under the sun. The cast of characters is like one giant petri dish. Take the example of Cameron - she ends up with Patrick, but not before sleeping with (b) Rupert (her future brother-in-law if she and Patrick marry) (b) Declan - Patrick's father (!!!!) (c) Tony, whose son is Patrick's sister's bf. My God. Someone should do a study on patterns on disease with these people.

2. Speaking of Cameron, she was the one character I could not stand. Not because she'd be awful to deal with in RL (because this goes for the majority of the characters) but because she wasn't fun to read about when bitchy - screaming and combative clinginess is not fun. But mainly, I confess, because she was a bitch to Taggy - Taggy is, by far, my favorite character and any time anyone was horrid to her, I wanted to slaughter them (is it possible to be protective of a fictional character?) I probably would have overlooked it if it was due to jealousy but Cameron was being a massive bitch to her before she's even thought of hooking up with Rupert. I get the sense the author liked Cameron a lot more than I did. Oh well.

3. Yup, Taggy is still my favorite character. By far. Also, if someone told me before I read this, that I would be obsessed about a 19-yr-old dyslexic cook and a 30-something ultimate-male-slut patrician politician, I would have thought they were insane. But here we are. Rupert/Taggy totally hit all my fictional kinks (minus having a sex scene - booo, every other permutation of people had a sex scene, why not the OTP?!). All the angst was beyond delicious. (Or as my daughter says 'deeeeeelicious'). I am a sucker for the whole "I am unworthy/too old/too around the block" stuff. And their personalities and needs and flaws and strengths really compliment each other. Plus, he won't care she can barely read as about the only thing he ever bothers to read is sports magazines :)

4. Adultery. See point 1. I tried to figure out if anyone hasn't committed adultery in this one and I think the only exceptions were people who weren't married :)

5. Reading about all the scrumptuous meals made me hungry.

6. I will never understand Declan and Maud's marriage but if all that drama and cheating works for them, good.

7. I want to read more about Billy Lloyd-Foxe and his swingerish wife. They are awesome. I believe he's one of the mains in Riders which I shall acquire forthwith (it also features Rupert as an utter cad in his wild young days, so that's a bonus).

8. Does the author have a thing for age differences? In addition to Taggy/Rupert, there is Patrick/Cameron (he's 21, she's almost 30), and Rupert's ex-wife who's in a happy mariage with a man 30 yrs her senior. Oddddddddddddddddddd.

In conclusion: I want to find a hot and loaded British aristocrat to buy me Faberge eggs and puppies and protect me from things. But not before a STD test panel results are out :)

Comments

[fivil.livejournal.com]

You're making me want to read this book! Given my interest in British politics, I'm always dumbfounded there haven't been any silly political chicklit type fares (well a conservative female politician wrote some chicklit before becoming a politician but I think they're universally regarded as bad chicklit novels, so) .. so this kind of interests me (though obviously there's very little focus on politics, it's just one guy's job).

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It's a very fun read, even if there are few likeable characters and even fewer good people in this. They are all super-entertaining though. Apparently Jilly Cooper is famous enough for her books to get herself an OBE but I had no idea :)

it's just one guy's job

Not just that, he's a Tory (no suprise, being upper-class, obv) - are you sure you want to read it? :) But then this was set/written in the 1980s and has a cameo by an unnamed female concervative PM who gets interviewed by the fictional TV station at issue in the book :P There are actually a couple of other politicians in this as minor characters but yes, not the focus of the story.

[fivil.livejournal.com]

I do have a tolerance for Tories. But yes, I figured he'd be Tory. Labour could also have upper-class slutty male MP's (one of my favourite British politicians is an upper-class Labour politician whose diaries I am reading at the moment and who definitely went against his privileged background)... Honestly my dream chicklit would be about a cross-party love story between two single 30-something MP's in the British parliament. But I know that'll probably never happen. :D

I'll look for it in libraries, but I doubt I'll be obsessed enough to buy these books.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Well, Trollope wrote novels set in the political world and so did Disraeli but they are Victorian.

[livvy-s.livejournal.com]

!!! A *truly* unexpected post to come across, for my first visit in a long long while (been buried under a pile of work the latter half of this year, finally digging myself out). I own a very tattered, battered, well-worn, oft-read copy of Rivals! I'm actually very surprised that there is another person out there reading this series who isn't living in the 1980s (not meant as a knock to the reader, the books or the 80s - I'm just genuinely am surprised). I love this book though - the scandals, the glamour, the general bad behaviour - I totally agree that it's all very delicious (this book is one of the few occasions the word "romp" is appropriate). A friend sent me a copy of Riders (as part of a very short-lived transcontinental book club we were trying to do - I believe this was one of 2 books exchanged). I haven't started it yet, in part because I've been so busy but also because I'm not sure if I want to read about Rupert when he was really bad - not just bad-boy-with-a-heart-of-gold bad; supposedly he is a real jerk to Helen. Have you read The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous? It's another in the Rutshire Chronicles. Definitely not as good as Rivals - it veers more on the side of ridiculousness and the bad guy is uncomfortably bad (unlike, say, Tony, who I felt for at moments). Aaaaanyway, I didn't mean to type so much - it was all just so unexpected! I think I just got inspired to throw all the "real books" I had packed into my holiday luggage, and put in Riders instead (not sure how I'll mask the cover if I read it in public though - Google image search "riders jilly cooper cover")

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I am actually reading Riders right now and I like it a lot. Yeah, he's a jerk to Helen but they are woefully mismatched (I mean, if you marry someone in hopes you'll reform them, it's doomed. You better be OK with them the way they are or they reform themselves. Otherwise disaster). He's ridiculously entertaining though and a good friend to Billy so it's not if he's tying maidens to railroad tracks.

I liked Jealous but yes, the villain is so beyond OTT, it's not funny. Polo was also pretty entertaining.

OMFG that cover!