Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Original poster

Don't flame me as I know I'm ungrateful

92 replies

Mamamaiasaura · 15/07/2012 08:42

But it's my birthday and my very very lovely friend has sent me the Grey books via Amazon gifts ... Currently working out how long I need to keep them, how I can pretend I read them or will I have to? I feel a bit like I've been set some homework o do over the summer that I really don't want to do. I'm not into porn at all and do not find things like nipple twiddling remotely erotic (looks down at 8m dd nursing). :)

So are they worth a read

OP posts:

Gumby · 15/07/2012 10:05

I'll have them!!

Original poster

Mamamaiasaura · 15/07/2012 10:06

oreniahii it's true tho. I think I. An forgive her tho she's bloody lovely and been best friends since school, over 20 years now I feel old

OP posts:

TandB · 15/07/2012 10:06

Get drunk and skim read. That's what my SIL and I did.

We laughed ALOT!

jimswifein1964 · 15/07/2012 10:06

Read a review online, ebay the books to get them out the house!

Orenishii · 15/07/2012 10:07

Also can I say - it's fanfiction. For Twilight. Fanfiction for Twilight!!

I wrote fanfiction for Sweet Valley High to fill in the time at the end of my English GCSE exam. Strangely it involved a lot of Todd being beaten up and being rescued by Elizabeth but still! It does not mean it should have been published. Or ever seen the light of day, for that matter.

Original poster

Mamamaiasaura · 15/07/2012 10:08

I'd give them to you gumby but I'm pretty sure she will ask to borrow them.

OP posts:

MysteriousHamster · 15/07/2012 10:08

You can return Amazon gifts without the sendee ever knowing. You might want to try the first couple of chapters before you send back, to be polite, but if they are truly not your thing there's no point keeping them.

Orenishii · 15/07/2012 10:11

Mamamaiasaura if my best friend of 20 years bought me these, I would beat her with them whilst crying I thought you knew me better than this!!!

Although she did read my SVH fanfiction at the time, so maybe she'd think it was my kinda thing....

Original poster

Mamamaiasaura · 15/07/2012 10:11

Kungfupannda genius... Except I can't get pissed yet

Did my op make it clear, it's not just one book but all 3?

OP posts:

TandB · 15/07/2012 10:13

I'm still BFing too but we had an all-day function to go to 3 weeks ago so MIL had the DSs and a fridge full of expressed milk.

SIL and I got the train home and downloaded the first book and shrieked with laughter while yelling "What? Chapter 6 and NO PORN?"

sashh · 15/07/2012 10:16

Ask friend if you can return them. A lot of people just don't know what they are about. A friend said to me she had heard of the book and if people want that kind of thing why don't the read Mills and Boon. I did point out the difference.

Just ask your friend if she realised it was porn?

crashdoll · 15/07/2012 10:29

Invite a friend over. Have a glass of wine or three. Read it out loud. It's hilarious.

rookiemater · 15/07/2012 11:43

I actually think it is incredibly rude of your friend to give them to you as a present. It's porn and of a very specific variety which (ahem) turns on a certain percentage of the population but leaves the rest cold and to boot is not brilliantly written.

I doubt your friend would buy you a dildo or a pair of handcuffs ( unless I am misinterpreting the relationship) and getting you this set of books is kind of akin to this.

Like sashh says I doubt your friend has actually read them, therefore see if you can change them for something else.

McHappyPants2012 · 15/07/2012 12:00

I loved reading them < bites lips> it been good for me as I have found a hobby :)

DawnOfTheDee · 15/07/2012 12:06

Just read the first couple of chapters....50 shades is very repetitive so you could then pretend to have read them all.

They are drivel....the stupid woman can't seem to go for more than 2 paragraphs without 'gasping'. Who the feck goes round gasping all the time? I tried it out on my DH. Did a decent gasp and he just looked concerned and asked if i'd seen a spider

solidgoldbrass · 15/07/2012 12:12

I would imagine that your friend is not much of a reader and thought oh, these books are really popular I will get them for OP. Though you'd have to be pretty clueless not to realise that pretty much everyone who wants to read the wretched things will have done so by now.
Just charity-shop them or something, say you tried them and they weren't terribly your thing but thanks anyway. and get her some incontience pads for her next birthday.

suburbandream · 15/07/2012 12:18

I skim read the first one - I was hoping there would actually be more insight into Grey's character flaws but sadly not. I can't be bothered to read the other two. If you think your friend will ask you about them there's enough about it on the web to give you lots of made-up opinions . On the plus side, it did spur me on to dig out that copy of Tess of the D'Urbevilles that I have been meaning to read for years - and it gives me hope that if these books can get published then maybe there is a novel in me waiting to be written after all

cocolepew · 15/07/2012 12:21

If you're sure she'd want to borrow them are you saying she bought them for you so she could read them ? They are so shit its unbelievable.

FoxyRoxy · 15/07/2012 12:22

mama yes, you could get away with skim reading 80% of the book and not miss much...

ThatBadCat · 15/07/2012 14:06

Mamamaiasaura! I didn't mean that you'd said you were going to sell them or get a refund! A couple of other posters has suggested it and I thought it was different to what I would do, that's all. But just because people do things different to me doesn't make them wrong.

You sound like a very considerate friend, actually, worrying that you'll hurt the gifter's feelings.

grimbletart · 15/07/2012 14:16

If a friend gave me these I am not sure which would offend me more - that it was porn or badly written shite. But badly written porn shite - that's a double whammy.

Read a review on line so you vaguely know something about it then bin them or send the to a charity shop. Then if you are asked you can appear to know something about them and say (honestly) you couldn't get into them. Not your thing. Then at least she would know not to insult your sense of taste again in future!

Viviennemary · 15/07/2012 14:23

I hate reading porn. But there has been so much on the net about those books, I gave in and got the first one. I've read a few chapters, and it's an OK read in a very 'banal' sort of way. Very easy reading. But not got into anything ing yet! Not sure what to advise really. Hope you have a nice birthday.

georgie22 · 15/07/2012 14:25

Not my cup of tea so I'm certainly not going to be reading them. Some of the reviews on Amazon are hilarious! All that gasping etc. would have me laughing! I think you should perhaps be honest and tell your friend that they're not your thing and change them for some decent reading material!!

KurriKurri · 15/07/2012 15:03

Borrow the audiobook from the library - put it on in the background when you are doing housework, - you will absorb enough of the 'plot' to say you've read them.

amicissimma · 15/07/2012 15:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Flip

1 2 3 4