Last year I read my first P. G. Wodehouse book, Jeeves and the Tie That Binds. It was brilliant and hilarious, everything I had heard Wodehouse to be. Jill the Reckless, my second expedition into the immense Wodehouse forest, wasn't quite up to the same standards. Bear this in mind though: Jill the Reckless was published in 1920; Jeeves and the Tie That Binds came out in 1971, just a few years before he died. He got better, is what I'm trying to say.
All that said, however, don't let me for a moment make you think that Jill the Reckless was a bad book. It was actually quite enjoyable. Jill is a feisty, vivacious English girl dumped by her Minister of Parliament, mama's boy fiance. Immediately afterward her uncle loses all her money in the stock market. So Jill moves to New York to make a new life. She eventually meets the right guy, and everyone lived happily ever after (except perhaps the aforementioned MP).
Wodehouse does show his knack for crafting a pleasurable sentence: "I have always thought it greatly to the credit of my parents that they let me grow up." But these sentences don't occur with the same abundance as his later works. I enjoyed this one, but especially look forward to what else he has to offer.
