Rating: 
Summary: mad cap hilarity!!!
Review: I have never come across a book which makes me laugh out loud; so much so, that my neighbours had their fingers poised to dial the emergency services! The story tells of Perdita McCleod who dreams of making it into the international world of polo playing. Within that is the separate stories of Ricky France Lynch and a host of other characters which I wish I knew personally. Their antics are hilarious (if sometimes unbelievable) but that is what good fiction is supposed to deliver. If you want LAUGH OUT LOUD comedy fun (albeit with a cast of shady characters) then this book is for you. I loved the fact that every character is flawed (unlike other books where everyone is perfect)and that they don't always deal with life situations in a rational way. I also love how Jilly combines English aristocracy with the humble labourer as well. It works so well in these times! I recommend this book to anyone who needs a laugh in their life.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant! My favorite in the series thus far!!
Review: I LOVE Jilly Cooper!!! I LOVED this book! What a fantastic story!! What FABULOUS characters!!I never know where Cooper's books are gonna go..she is NEVER predictable!!! I was so wrapped up in Luke that I couldnt stand it!!! This was a wildly entertaining book written by a wildly brilliant author, overflowing with Shocking characters, numerous storylines, and just sooo much fun!! I have no idea how Jilly Cooper manages to tie it all together..but, WOW! What a keeper!
Rating:
Summary: I See a Pattern
Review: I loved this book as well as Rivals and Riders (my favorite) Now those being the only ones I have read, I see a striking similarity between the characters both physically and personality wise. Helen, Maude, and Chessie both sound exactly alike in their appearance and Maude, Chessie, and Janie all have the exact same personalities. Fen, Cameron, and Perdita all play the same characters though Fen is the most likable. They even sound the same appearance wise, very waifish with spiky short hair(is the schoolboy look some kind of fetish in the eighties?) Jake is like Ricky, very talented, but with many hardships along the way. Bas is Rupert (though they actually are friends) Billy is Luke, and so on and so on. Don't get me wrong, I love the books, it is just odd.
Rating: 
Summary: Sex Horses Beautiful People
Review: Its a very trashy, contrived, completely un realistic novel, full of rich and snobbish upper classes "the horsey set" as they are called in England. However, having said that, it was highly enjoyable, full of impossibly goodlooking men and beautiful women (who were all sex crazed). Not as good as Riders, Coopers first novel, but it provides light relief from thought provoking and more taxing(but obviously better) books. Buy it to read on a plane journey, it's trashy and predictable, but fun.
Rating:
Summary: Great Juicy Read, A Great Ride All the Way
Review: Jilly Cooper writes a book in the one-time bestseller style readers in America ate up with a spoon--chock full of fascinating characters, real human dilemmas, and glamorous action. You can virtually never find them now from American publishers. The characters are delightfully riveting, some good, some bad, but always totally alive, and I especially liked the character of Daisy, the mother, though Perdita was largely a pill apart from her love of animals, and had to learn to be a better human being in the course of the book. Luke was the man every woman wants for her very own.Jilly Cooper is a supreme spinner of tales!
Rating: 
Summary: Polled Over!
Review: Polo comes after Riders and Rivals. It maintains the same backdrop and high flying jet setting lifestyle. Cooper maintains the humour and raunchy goings on as her last novels. However, the main character of Polo is Perdita, with whom I gradually began to loathe. However, Polo is good escapism, with some really good twists and turns in the plot. I have always felt that some of Cooper's dialogue was contrived, and this marred my enjoyment of one of the best scenes towards the end of the book. It's an enjoyable read
Rating:
Summary: Polled Over!
Review: Polo comes after Riders and Rivals. It maintains the same backdrop and high flying jet setting lifestyle. Cooper maintains the humour and raunchy goings on as her last novels. However, the main character of Polo is Perdita, with whom I gradually began to loathe. However, Polo is good escapism, with some really good twists and turns in the plot. I have always felt that some of Cooper's dialogue was contrived, and this marred my enjoyment of one of the best scenes towards the end of the book. It's an enjoyable read
Rating:
Summary: Laugh all the way through
Review: The third in the series of Jilly Cooper's wonderfully hilarious Campbell-Black books - although this is the one in which things really depart quite markedly from Rupert Campbell-Black's life and he becomes a bit player in everyone elses story. Like all other books in the series the plot is set around one theme - in this case Polo. The main characters are Ricky France-Lynch, fabulous but moody English Polo-Playing star, and Perdita Macleod- the stroppy young English school-girl who longs for Ricky almost as much as she longs to play polo. Their stories and those of dozens of other hugely likeable and wildly flawed characters interweave in wonderfully satisfying and hilarious story. No one in is perfect in Jilly Cooper world - which makes for great reading. You don't really have to have read the first two books in the series to know what is going on here. Most of the characters are new and this is a whole new plot so you really won't have missed out on much. The few characters that to turn up again are explained briefly anyway. However, if you haven't already read Riders or Rivals, the first two books in this series, then get thee to a library.
Rating: 
Summary: not so staggered by the razzmatazz
Review: This is the kind of book that your kids home alone unearth from your underwear drawer and wet themselves laughing at 1) because of the colorful language and graphic sex, 2) the over-the-top descriptions of sex, and 3) from embarrassment that their parent has such poor taste in literature.
Parts I enjoyed, but there were quite a few things that annoyed me. Usually, if the equestrienne character is hostile toward people, she's redeemed by her genuine love for horses, but not this "heroine." She half-kills her mare and recovers in just a few pages - which as a horse lover sure endeared me to her. The other characters are equally as unlikeable; the only decent main character (Daisy - the brat's mother) is such a doormat that you wind up wanting to slap her upside the head rather than root for her. (I did like her dog Ethel and her cat, as well as most of the ponies. At least, the author throws you that bone, pun intended.)
This was the kind of book where everyone's outfits were described in intricate detail, and their motives were spelled out the moment we met them (the author's motto seems to be tell not show). If a character's hostility was due to not being hugged as a child, the reader doesn't have to work too hard to figure this out.
Every time someone entered the story, whether or not we'd seen them before, we learned what color their outfit was. Cooper is very fond of colors - emerald green, baby blue, scrambled egg yellow, Pepto Bismol pink (just kidding), etc. After awhile this became tiresome.
Still something kept me skimming after reading the first two hundred pages. I just think it would have been as equally good a book if it were about half the length. None of the skimpy plot would have had to have been sacrificed. To the author's credit, she provides an extensive list of characters and a brief description (my favorite being "Bridget Macleod, Hamish's mother, an absolute bitch"). Subtlety thy name is not "Polo."
|
