what do you do when friends/relatives lend you chick lit crappy books?

[curlycarla]

ok, i admit it, i'm a bit of book snob...well not really if I am but I HATE chick lit books, you can spot them a mile off with their 'fun' looking covers!

However, I love reading and I often get friends and my MIL lending me 'funny books you will love'....err, I can tell by looking at the cover 'no I won't!'

What do you do? Say 'no thanks', take it, don't read it, hand it back and lie saying 'oh yes, it was great' (that's what i've done last 2 times but felt really bad that i couldn't really enter into a conversation about it, plus then they start lending me more)

Am not totally snobby...like Richard & Judy's book club type stuff..just NOT chick lit!

Well, I'd probably read it in the school holidays when having more than 2 minutes at a stretch to read is impossible

If I really couldnt bear a book I'd say 'I read the first few pages but couldnt get into it'. That's what I do when people lend me detective/sci fi/fantasy books. They dont usually keep offering.

Why not just say you don't like chick lit? Nothing wrong with that. You could say "sorry, not my kind of thing - I prefer crime/horror/historical fiction" - or whatever.

The more you lie about it, the more it will happen and then it will be worse!

I usually say 'thanks, but I've already got a pile of 20 books waiting to be read' (which is true in my case) - jugglingmug's suggestion is also good.

Embarrassed to say that someone did lend me a Penny Vincenzi recently and I quite enjoyed it .

I say - 'Thanks but I'm not going to get around to reading it.'
This was after BIL stormed into my bedroom and picked up book he had lent me about a year before, grumbling 'You're never going to read it, are you?' which I had to admit I wasn't.
So now I just say so

I just say "I don't read modern fiction" whenever this sort of thing crops up.
I don't read modern fiction because I read so fast I finish the books in 2 hours and I like a book that lasts me a while. I make an exception for Alexander McCall Smith though!

I do that to a friend. I do read the occasional chick-lit book but it'd be one I'd chosen myself for some reason. I don't just read piles of chick-lit. She would laugh at my Steve Tolz and Jonathan Franzen and LIonel Shriver and tell me that life is too short. She's definitely not stupider than I am!! She just wants something different out of reading.

Ragwort, I have enjoyed Penni Vincenzi in the past, but I was much younger and now, if I want to read that kind of saga I'd read Susan Howatch. If like PV but want something a bit less sex and shopping, try Susan Howatch. She's brilliant!

Bandwithering; I think I have read Susan Howatch (has she been around a long time?).

How did you get on with Jonathan Franzen? I enjoyed the reviews and thought it was 'my sort of book' but couldn't get in to the one I tried .......... can't remember the title. Which would you recommend?

Was it called The Corrections? I enjoyed it, but I had a few other lighter (easier) books on the go at the same time. The writing in the corrections was very good but it did require a commitment......

Susan Howatch has been around for a long time yes! She wrote Cashelmara and Penmaryc which I read at school. I read the A Question of Integrity recently and thought it was great.

I'd read them. I read crisp packets if I run out of books, I'd read chick lit. Though I'd draw the line at Katie ffecking fforde and/or those pink ones that are given away with Glamour after a year or so. Cannot cope with those.

I think you'll have to be honest, if you say you like them, they'll keep a coming .

I'm with Sue on this, I'd just read them! Although I do genuinely like some chick lit, it can be surprising and well written. I'll read any book really, apart from child abuse ones.

My MIL has given me some shocking books in the past couple of years, yet I have read them all. Thankfully she never asks what I thought of them afterwards, and never wants them back either. I am the sort of person who will read any old shit at times though.

If something is really, really bad (unreadably bad, as opposed to 'I have to finish it, it's so bad') I would just say I couldn't get into it.

Well having deteriorating eyesight seems to have one advantage at least, I have the get out clause of "I'm really sorry but I'm only able to read on my Kindle these days".

Some chick lit is utter shite but some of it is really witty and funny. I'm not a big fan of the genre but I do read the odd chick-lit thing.

A friend recently lent me a copy of Diana Gabaldon's Cross Stitch and it really does not appeal to me at all (not keen on historical stuff or fantasy stuff) but I know that loads of people love it, so I will give it a go. If I'm not enjoying it by about fifty pages in I'll abandon it.

When people pass on books to me that I'm sure I won't like I usually just say thanks and tell them it'll be a while before I get round to reading it cos I've got a pile of other things to get through first. Hopefully it means they won't be waiting for feedback on it anytime soon and will forget about it!

I read them!

I will generally try anything but if it doesn't hold me then I ditch it. Sometimes they surprise you. Generally they don't.

I seriously don't get this. Either you accept gracefully and then set aside or you politely decline. it's a non-issue.

Unless maybe you're just venting about the in-laws. Now that I do understand.

I say they are not my thing - else mil would be giving me them all the time.

Except in a reading material emergency. Then I'll read anything. But with the Kindle, the horror of a delayed flight leaving me bookless is no more

I just say I don't read books with stick drawings on the cover.

Why isn't it sold by weight?

I take it, give it a go because occasionally they lend you something really good that you would not pick out yourself.
Apart from when it really looks horrendous - eg misery-lit - and then I say, sorry too busy to take it.

I would just read it - good for reading in the bath, no brain activation needed.

Whoever upthread said about crisp packets, i've been known to read the back of shampoo bottles in the loo if there's nothing better.

ahem don't judge a book by its cover

I would just read it, or at least give it a go. And then put in a charity shop.

Sometimes it's better than expected, sometimes it's nice just to have something simple to read. I personally want to disown the person who recommend Lionel Shriver to me. I like the genre, hated the book (WNTTAK).

Read it and thank them, i love chicklits haha... then give them to charity as i don't have space to make a big library in my house and sit there looking at my lovely books all day long ( ok just for a few hours lol)