Break time from the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge reviews, because I am still not finished the books for categories 12, 13, and 14...I'm NEARLY done them so they will get interspersed with non-Book Riot reviews this week. It's been hectic lately, I've had so much to do with work and holiday stuff that I haven't really had time to actually sit down and read. Especially since I decided to replay my way through all of the Kingdom Hearts games in anticipation of Kingdom Hearts III finally coming out next month. I have been waiting for that game for over 10 years now. Anyway, for this non-Book Riot review, I decided to go with another book that's up Angie's alley that I read this year. In fact, she'd read this one. I found my way to this book thanks to a joke that I didn't realise was a joke from Richard Hammond in an episode of Top Gear. Hammond was teasing the old Stig (who wrote a book) by calling him romance novelist Jilly Cooper, and at the time I had never heard of Jilly Cooper and wondered if this really was a pen name for him. Curiosity led me to look up Jilly Cooper on Goodreads and discovering Riders which luckily fulfilled a PopSugar challenge for this year. I finished this book but ended up failing PopSugar overall so the less said about that part the better haha.
Riders
Author: Jilly Cooper
Publisher: Transworld Digital
Publisher: Transworld Digital
Published: December 23, 2010 by (first published January 1, 1985)
Page count: 928
Genres: romance, chick lit, sports
Page count: 928
Genres: romance, chick lit, sports
Date read: June 16, 2018
Number of times read: 1
Format: ebookSource: Kobo
Summary
‘Sex and horses: who could ask for more?’ Sunday Telegraph
Set against the glorious Cotswold countryside, Riders offers an intoxicating blend of swooning romance, adventure and hilarious high jinks.
Brooding hero Jake Lovell, under whose magic hands even the most difficult horse or woman is charmed, is driven by his loathing of the dashing darling of the show ring, Rupert Campbell-Black. Having pinched each other’s horses and drunk their way around the capitals of Europe, the feud between the two men finally erupts with devastating consequences at the Los Angeles Olympics . . .
A classic bestseller, Riders takes the lid off international show jumping, a sport where the brave horses are almost human, but the humans behave like animals.
‘Joyful and mischievous’ Jojo Moyes
‘Exhilarating, irresistible and one of our nation’s most beloved novels’ Jill Mansell
‘Jilly Cooper is the funniest and the sharpest writer there is’ Jenny Colgan
‘Flawlessly entertaining’ Helen Fielding -- via Goodreads
‘Sex and horses: who could ask for more?’ Sunday Telegraph
Set against the glorious Cotswold countryside, Riders offers an intoxicating blend of swooning romance, adventure and hilarious high jinks.
Brooding hero Jake Lovell, under whose magic hands even the most difficult horse or woman is charmed, is driven by his loathing of the dashing darling of the show ring, Rupert Campbell-Black. Having pinched each other’s horses and drunk their way around the capitals of Europe, the feud between the two men finally erupts with devastating consequences at the Los Angeles Olympics . . .
A classic bestseller, Riders takes the lid off international show jumping, a sport where the brave horses are almost human, but the humans behave like animals.
‘Joyful and mischievous’ Jojo Moyes
‘Exhilarating, irresistible and one of our nation’s most beloved novels’ Jill Mansell
‘Jilly Cooper is the funniest and the sharpest writer there is’ Jenny Colgan
‘Flawlessly entertaining’ Helen Fielding -- via Goodreads
Review
To give you a very quick and dirty idea about my feelings towards this book I present how long it took me to read: I started this book on January 26, and I finished it on June 16. That's very nearly 5 months. Because I kept getting so frustrated that I would have to put it down for long stretches before I could bring myself to come back to it. Why? Well, because every single one of the characters is horribly flawed and melodramatic and I just couldn't handle it in big doses. This book is a door stopper! It's longer than a Harry Potter book and nearly as long as the longest two Dark Tower books!! It's like taking the entire eight seasons of Desperate Housewives making it about athletes and turning it into a book. The drama just never, ever stops, it continues to get crazier and crazier right up to the end. Every time you think there is going to be a moment's reprieve something completely crazy happens! There was one point in the book that very, very nearly made me want to give up on the whole enterprise and it certainly turned me completely against Billy, I was kind of rooting for him up until the trip to Africa. But that put me completely off him, and I already didn't like Janey and hated Rupert so that incident really just made me hate them even more.
It's really weird to consider this book one thing, it really does feel more like I am reviewing a season or series of a television show simply because of the scale and scope. There are about 14 characters who could be considered "main characters" the ones with the most focus are Jake, Rupert, Helen, Fen, Billy, and Janey but there are loads of other characters who could be considered MCs. And they're all absolutely horrible. A couple have some redeeming qualities, out of the above-listed ones Fen and Helen aren't completely irredeemable. Jake comes close to being completely irredeemable but scraps it together at the eleventh hour and sort of manages to at least partially redeem himself. Rupert, Bill and Janey though? They can go to hell. I hope Rupert gets some comeuppance in the rest of the series but I expect he won't because he's considered Cooper's dashing 'hero' figure. He's a sexist, misogynistic pig. He treats his wife and son appallingly (to put it mildly). He's abusive among other things, completely and totally reckless, and has anger issues. He's even guilty of animal cruelty. I just can't find him likeable. He was definitely responsible for a lot of the times when I had to put the book down and take a break. It would be fine if he'd ever actually faced any real justice for the awful things he did, but he never ever did, by the end of the book he's come up smelling of roses, and Jake, who was bad, but nowhere near Rupert's level of asshole, has lost almost everything and everyone that matters to him.
The plot is very much like a soap opera. It's a years-long feud between two show jumpers, Jake Lovell and Ruper Campbell-Black. Rupert's the spoilt, filthy rich aristocratic athlete, whereas Jake is an orphan, part-gipsy, and is very much working class especially compared to Rupert. But Jake is more naturally talented than Rupert and has a lot more compassion for the animals, so their styles clash. Plus Rupert used to bully Jake when they went to the same school. Any time that show jumping is happening in the book it's, in my opinion, the absolute best parts of the book. Cooper has done an amazingly detailed portrayal of what it's like to run in show jumping circles and to actually participate in an event. She definitely did her research for that. I definitely would have rated this book higher if not for how angry 99% of the characters made me.
Also, I love the ridiculousness of that cover, it's fantastic haha.
Do you think it's fair to judge a character written in the 80s by today's standards of behaviour?
To give you a very quick and dirty idea about my feelings towards this book I present how long it took me to read: I started this book on January 26, and I finished it on June 16. That's very nearly 5 months. Because I kept getting so frustrated that I would have to put it down for long stretches before I could bring myself to come back to it. Why? Well, because every single one of the characters is horribly flawed and melodramatic and I just couldn't handle it in big doses. This book is a door stopper! It's longer than a Harry Potter book and nearly as long as the longest two Dark Tower books!! It's like taking the entire eight seasons of Desperate Housewives making it about athletes and turning it into a book. The drama just never, ever stops, it continues to get crazier and crazier right up to the end. Every time you think there is going to be a moment's reprieve something completely crazy happens! There was one point in the book that very, very nearly made me want to give up on the whole enterprise and it certainly turned me completely against Billy, I was kind of rooting for him up until the trip to Africa. But that put me completely off him, and I already didn't like Janey and hated Rupert so that incident really just made me hate them even more.
It's really weird to consider this book one thing, it really does feel more like I am reviewing a season or series of a television show simply because of the scale and scope. There are about 14 characters who could be considered "main characters" the ones with the most focus are Jake, Rupert, Helen, Fen, Billy, and Janey but there are loads of other characters who could be considered MCs. And they're all absolutely horrible. A couple have some redeeming qualities, out of the above-listed ones Fen and Helen aren't completely irredeemable. Jake comes close to being completely irredeemable but scraps it together at the eleventh hour and sort of manages to at least partially redeem himself. Rupert, Bill and Janey though? They can go to hell. I hope Rupert gets some comeuppance in the rest of the series but I expect he won't because he's considered Cooper's dashing 'hero' figure. He's a sexist, misogynistic pig. He treats his wife and son appallingly (to put it mildly). He's abusive among other things, completely and totally reckless, and has anger issues. He's even guilty of animal cruelty. I just can't find him likeable. He was definitely responsible for a lot of the times when I had to put the book down and take a break. It would be fine if he'd ever actually faced any real justice for the awful things he did, but he never ever did, by the end of the book he's come up smelling of roses, and Jake, who was bad, but nowhere near Rupert's level of asshole, has lost almost everything and everyone that matters to him.
The plot is very much like a soap opera. It's a years-long feud between two show jumpers, Jake Lovell and Ruper Campbell-Black. Rupert's the spoilt, filthy rich aristocratic athlete, whereas Jake is an orphan, part-gipsy, and is very much working class especially compared to Rupert. But Jake is more naturally talented than Rupert and has a lot more compassion for the animals, so their styles clash. Plus Rupert used to bully Jake when they went to the same school. Any time that show jumping is happening in the book it's, in my opinion, the absolute best parts of the book. Cooper has done an amazingly detailed portrayal of what it's like to run in show jumping circles and to actually participate in an event. She definitely did her research for that. I definitely would have rated this book higher if not for how angry 99% of the characters made me.
Also, I love the ridiculousness of that cover, it's fantastic haha.
Do you think it's fair to judge a character written in the 80s by today's standards of behaviour?
Overall Rating
 |
| 3.5 bolts |
When I found out you were reading this I was so excited. It brought back so many memories of reading this as a teenager and thinking it was so naughty. If I read it now I doubt it would have quite the same effect on me
ReplyDeleteI suspect that you're right about that hun! I'm sure if I'd read it as a teenager it would have had quite the different effect on me as well. I really did enjoy it overall there were just parts that made me want to knock the characters heads together, or knock them out hehe.
Delete