Free crap! (The Bulgari Connection - Fay Weldon)

Member Name: idodoyou

Product:	The Bulgari Connection - Fay Weldon
Date:	19/11/01 (91 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It was free. I didn't have to pay for this drivel.

Disadvantages: I read it in the first place. I feel dirty. My mind has been sullied!

The Bulgari Connection

Now, it's not often I enter competitions on line. (Don't know why?) However, I entered one a couple of Sunday's ago, and by the following Wednesday I had a book land on my doormat shouting 'prize! prize!'. After I?d finished it, I was shouting something as well .... (an' it t'weren't nice neither!)

Anyway. When you have books landing on your doorstep, free books, you read them. When the free books are by authors you've heard of, but never read. You read them. You do. They are free after all.

I have to say, I love the cover. It's hardback and I hate hardbacks. But I love the colour. It's bright orange and pink. Garish. Kinda like Barbie met the Tango man and it got nasty! Barbie won!
I like garish. I like this cover. Good start? Maybe? Maybe not?

There's no blurb. The book is 'blurbless' for the want of another word. Well, not entirely. There is one, just not in its usual place. You can find it on the inside of the front cover. It's short and not particularly sweet. But the again, why should it be? Sweet that is? The book certainly isn't.

Weighing in at a unsatisfactory 220 pages (it shouldn't have been that long!) the copy in my grubby little mitts is a special limited gift edition, which was first published by BVLGARI (posh jewellers) Italy S.p.A last year.
Never having come across any of Fay Weldons' literally offerings until now, I didn't really know what to expect? I have seen a couple of her adaptations on the TV though. 'The Cloning of Joanna May', and 'The Loves and Lives of a She Devil'. The former did nothing to excite, while the latter was mildly amusing in parts. Neither however 'floated my boat' enough for me to rush out and obtain one of her novels. As I previously said, I've heard of her work, just never read any of it.
Fay Weldon is as well known for her 'sc
reenwriting' and 'cultural journalism' skills as she is her novel writing. She has over 30 books to her name, with a range of fiction, non-fiction, short stories, and children's book among them.

I started the book with an open mind. The blurb didn't give much away. And I didn't know what to expect. The only thing I had an inkling about was that the book was a prize from the 'crime' section of competitions run by www.fireandwater.com. So, naturally I was thinking 'crime book'.

The first thing to hit me when opening the book was the layout. Instead of the continuous lines of print with the occasional new paragraph to break the up the pages, we are faced with smaller paragraphs. And occasionally, just the odd sentence on it's own.
To add impact maybe .... I dunno?

I like this layout. Whether or not it's me and my highly complex [??] way of thinking, but it seemed as if this book didn't take half as much effort to read as books that I haven't really been impressed with usually do.
And 'impressed' and 'this book' are words that just don't go together I'm afraid. 'Boring', 'crap', 'pointless', and 'this book' do however. I'm only glad that I didn't start the book with any expectations. They really would have been dashed.

The story is all about Doris Dubois. A cross between Alexis Colby and Anthea Turner!! A sugar covered bitch!! And the new wife of Barley Salt. The new, much younger wife of Barley Salt. She was the one, of the many mistresses, that finally made it past the wife. Blind sighted her and then stole her husband. She's an Art critic with a TV show, a C~D rated celeb with the attitude that shouldn't, but usually comes with an A rated celeb. 'I am god, and I will be obeyed' ~ that kinda thing!

Barley Salt is heading for 60. A business man who after many years of marria
ge to the faithful, matronly Grace, finally surrendered to the mistress and ditched the missus for a much younger model.
He made his money in the early stages of his marriage to Grace. It wasn't easy, and at times they were dodging the baliffs. Barley is in the middle of a big 'make or break' business deal. Will Doris stick around like Grace always did if Barley goes belly up?

Grace Salt. Ex wife, and ex jailbird! Yep, she spent time in prison for trying to run over Doris Dubois in a supermarket car park. She really isn't as unhinged as the last paragraph might suggest. At first, life as an 'ex' is not fun. But with resilience, and a will not to let Doris take more than her husband, Grace' life changes for the better.

To tell you more about characters and the story line would be pointless. You might, just might decide that you're going to like this book, and decide to hunt out a copy for yourself? Please don't? You won't. Like it that is. As well as the pointlessness in adding further details to this, it would be hard. Y'see, nothing happens! It doesn't. It really doesn't. We just plod along (aware that you are wasting your time) reading words that fail to do anything at all. There is no story line. 220 pages of pap.

We read the book as the third person. But then, just occasionally, we pick up the story as the first person. Why, I don't know? Perhaps its meant as a recap facility cos all we get is the last paragraphs from a different perspective. And, to be honest, we don't really need, or learn anything more. I suppose it does give the story some variance in a way cos the story line itself certainly doesn't do it!!
Of course, just when you get used to the back tracking, the first and third person change over, we then have a couple of diary extract type chapters!! Don't ask me why they appear I've no idea? But looking back, I have no idea about a lot o
f things with regards to this book.
What is actual story line about? I have no bloody idea!
Why was it categorised as 'crime'? I have no bloody idea! The only crime committed is that it was written in the first place!
And why was it called 'The Bulgari Connection' when the contents of the novel (story is too nice a word and very misleading to be used here!) contains very, very little to do with a posh jewellers or any of the jewellery from it? Again, I have no bloody idea!

Of course, there just might be people out there that have read this book and closed the last page with a sigh of satisfaction and the words 'Cor, blimey, Fay has dunit again'. I don't deny that we are all different when it comes to our preferred reading material. But I find it hard to believe that this book can be liked by anybody?
It really is the pits.

My copy, once I've gleaned the ISBN number from it will be heading 'carbootboxwards'. It's not staying in the life of idodoyou for a moment longer. I feel sullied, dirty, used after reading that crap. I can't help it.

To leave you price and purchasing details would assume that you good people out there might want to obtain a copy of this yourselves? I feel it is my duty to keep these details from you. I will try to hamper your course of buying this book as much as I possibly can. To have you waste your time, and your energy on codswallop such as this would haunt me for the rest of my days. I don't think that I would even wish this book on my enemies?

I hate it. I hated it. And I will always hate it!

Publisher: Limited edition BVLGARI(2000) Flamingo (2001)
Pages: 220
Price: Don't bother, cos you ain't gonna buy it!! (call me bossy if you want ~ but I'm saving your soul!)
ISBN: 0 00 712126 1

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