NOTE: I received an uncorrected Advanced Readers Copy of this book from NetGalley. This review is my honest opinion of the book.

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Rating 3.5 stars

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From the author of Vet on the Loose and Vet Among the Pigeons comes Vet on a Mission.  This book contains some of the experiences experienced by Vetrinarian Gillian Hick while starting her own small vet clinic in what is essentially her backyard - along with raising 3 small children (with the help of her husband).  The stories are a mix of entertaining, realistic and sad.  The writing is not as good as the James Herriot vet stories (it's a little stiff, too much tell and not enough show).  However, the book still makes for entertaining reading and fans of James Herriot or vet memoirs would enjoy the book.

I wanted to like this book.

I love James Herriot and was delighted by the prospect of finding his female counterpart. Unfortunately I just couldn't warm to Gillian Hick, it seemed to me that she had a perpetual axe to grind.Farmers were misogynistic idiots, pet owners were either bimbos who shouldn't have been let anywhere near an animal or just plain unpleasant. 

While I understand that the 'lady vet' no doubt met a lot of rotten clients who should never have been able to look after another living thing, it seems strange to me that those were the cases she chose to write about.

Surely there must have been some more upbeat stories she could have related???

It just seemed a little unbalanced; too much of the bad stuff that had happened and not enough of the good.

The whole 'when's the real vet coming?' gag was funny... for the first few stories, but it got old pretty quick. After a while it started to sound less like humour and a lot more like bitterness. Which again, I can understand, but it didn't make for fun reading.

The thing is that when you read James Herriot, however obnoxious the owner/farmer is being to him, James always paints himself in a ridiculous light. He's always inadvertently made a fool of himself in some way and THAT was why it's so funny. You feel for him because you know that he knows what he's talking about, it's just that something he's done is making him look silly.

My favourite example of this is the story where he's trying to deliver a calf and the cow is in difficulties. Everything's going wrong, the farmers are losing patience: yet what is James worrying about??? The fact that he added and over generous helping of his landladies bath salts to his bath water and now, with all his exertion, he's giving off a strongly feminine scent!!!

You really feel for James Herriot, but you can't help but laugh at him just the same.
I never felt that with Gillian Hick. I didn't feel sorry for her: her stories were a thin layer of humour, that by the end of the book, had pealed away to show an underlying thread of resentment.

Like I said: it's understandable, just not very entertaining. I kind of came away with the idea that she didn't really like her job at all.
Obviously this is all just my personal opinion and, like all opinions, it might be completely different to yours. So by all means, give the book a try. ;-D

After the disappointment of Anna Birch's Call The Vet, my appetite was whetted for a good "My First Year As An ..." book. I had a poke around Amazon's "People Who Bought ... " suggesters and found this one, Vet on the Loose by Wicklow vet Gillian Hick. I hadn't previously heard of her, which is either surprising given the size of the place, or perfectly understandable given that I don't actually watch Irish TV, or read Irish newspapers, or interact with anything Irish if I can possibly help it. 

I was sold by the end of the prologue. Any story about castrating a horse which includes a young man showing enthusiasm for the testicles with the words "If I put dat in me sister's bed tonight it'll scare de shite ota her!" is going to be for me.

Vet On The Loose treads the expected path of a newly qualified Irish vet, more specifically that of a female vet at a time when women were still rare in the profession: the beginning of the 21st century. There are stories of the everyday sexism she faced (farmers asking when the real vet was going to arrive etc) which, having lived in Ireland for a good while, I buy totally. There are stories of Dublin council estates, posh Equine hospitals and bachelor hill farmers, and unlike Call the Vet, the stories centre on the cases. To a James Herriot devotee such as myself a couple of them tread familiar ground - there's no wine bottle *uncrosses legs* but we have mention of the sugar trick. However, it's done with enough of its own identity to feel fresh and one one them has the best punchline in the whole book. 

The writing, in particular, is excellent and Hick's ear for dialogue spot on. She manages with the smallest of details to show us her clients - and herself; I can *hear* the accents. Comic writing is tremendously difficult to do well and Hick is funny, educational and engaging. As it was mentioned in a few of the reviews I read, I'll confirm there is some spoken profanity but it's never the crux on which a joke hinges, merely a nod to an accurate representation of character (although there is not nearly enough to actually *be* accurate).

As I'm me, I'll complain that the funniest stories were all in the first half which led to an uneven experience as a whole, but to be honest there isn't a duff chapter in the thing.

Vet On The Loose deserves to have a wider audience that it does - it's published by The O'Brien Press who are small and Irish so you're unlikely to find this in your local bookshop, but - as I mentioned - it's currently £1.19 on Kindle and more than worth it. Hick has a second book out, Vet Among the Pigeons, (which I have already borrowed from the library), and I really, really hope she finds the time to write a third. 

4.5 stars.