Jilly Cooper is a name I’ve always known. Back in the eighties, at the height of her fame, she was on TV all the time, especially on chat shows and panel games, and her books were everywhere. They were instantly recognisable with their saucy covers as well. Of course, aimed primarily at women, and not teenage boys, I never read any at the time. Last year, however, I heard writer Daisy Buchanan talk about how reading can boost our mental health, and she spoke highly of Cooper’s work. She praised it for being pure escapist entertainment, so I thought I’d give it a go.

This seemed a good place to start. It took me some time to read, because it’s very long, and it has a cast of thousands, so there was a lot to concentrate on. The key character, of course, is Rupert Campbell-Black, the womanising, scheming bounder par excellence. In this book he’s a show-jumping star, and the sport forms a key part of the book.

I think it’s pretty clear what to expect when you read a Jilly Cooper novel – they’re not called “bonkbusters” for nothing. Just about everyone has ridiculously energetic sex with just about everyone else, and anyone who is married is having affairs with several people at once. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen erotic writing that really floats my boat, and this doesn’t particularly either, but Cooper seems above-average at writing it. All sorts of other devious shenanigans go on as the characters plot and scheme.

The most common criticism of Cooper’s work is that the attitudes and behaviours on display are appalling, and I can’t argue with that. In the era of #metoo, there’s horrific misogyny on display, with gruesome fatphobia, homophobia, xenophobia and ableism thrown in for good measure. The book is awash with horribly outdated racial slurs, insults that have long since disappeared from polite conversation, and some truly dreadful lazy stereotypes. I don’t really think there’s a single likeable character in this book, but despite these flaws, I kept going. It is, after all, pretty obvious you’re going to get some very dated concepts in the writing, so I’m not sure I’ve got much patience for people getting massively offended and leaving one-star reviews. If you can’t cope with some horrific eighties excess, these books are not for you.

The writing seems like a very mixed bag. Some of it was OK, but I don’t feel like Cooper did dialogue very well, and the pacing seems to be all over the place. The book was also very long, at least twice as long as it needed to be. There’s some cheeky, playful and humorous touches in there in places, but this book is no literary masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination.

Somehow, though, it kept me going, and despite being awful in one or two places, with some key characters I really wanted to strangle (I hated Helen with a passion), I kept turning the pages right to the end. The final few chapters were the best, when the indiscriminate shagging let up for a bit and there was actually some plot, although in all honesty it was a bit cheesy and predictable.

It’s all good fun, and I decided to be generous with my rating. I may well move on to her next book, but I think in the meantime I need to read something that will actually engage my brain a bit!