Smearing pap

I have this quandry. It's not really a quandry because I know what I'm going to do but I feel badly about doing it.

A girl at work knows I'm a reader and she was all excited to lend me a book that she totally enjoyed. She was tickled that she'd been able to read and love this book so much (she has a young child and doesn't have a lot of time to read).

She brought it in to work. It's a historical romance. Being nice I told her I'd read it on breaks or lunchtimes when I was sans lunch partners.

It's hard to read, not because it's difficult material but because it's so romance. Not my kind of book at all. Most of the books I read have war craft, battle strategy, political intrigue and very little romance. And it's well known I read mostly sci-fi/fantasy which does have romance and love interests but that is not usually the entire focus.

The entire focus of this book is bodice-ripping/man/woman/desire/sex/marriage. And the writing is just plain simplistic.

I am going to finish this book and I am going to discuss it with my friend at work. I'm going to have to break it to her that while the story is nice (and I am being very generous here) I'm not really a romantic so it wasn't really all that enjoyable.

I will refrain from using the words: pap, idiotic, simplistic, crap, laughable, mundane and worthless.

Now that I've gotten that out of my system (until I have to pick up the book again) I can think about nice ways to have a conversation with her about her choice of reading material (vs my own). It's funny how people get all attached to what they read as if they themselves wrote it. I don't want to make her feel stupid for liking something I so dislike so I have to be careful. I'm just happy she's reading again.

FYI: I am knitting in between reading the book. I'm almost thru my skein and I can see I'm going to have to get another one to finish the scarf. Bummer.